Those tiny innovations that I lo… like a lot
 

One thing I quote in DAO is also the numerous little innovation, it could be just features rarely used but bring them back in the mainstream is the same than a real innovation. Here some I quote that I like a lot:

• Sustained spells.
• One inventory for the whole team.
• Team selection among a roster in many places instead of a fixed or few fixed places.
• Team camp design much more developed than it's ever been done, even with story events occurring there.
• Tiny PC ingame icons for the summon right to icon of his master.
• Buffer action with a tiny icon right to PC ingame icon (it's just weird that because (or not) of this design choice we lost more actions buffered, perhaps 2 would be a nice balance).
• Small PC movements during fights, very nice, never saw that before (or don't remember), that makes back-stab tactics very clear.
• Direct links with a click from events icons to sections in diary/quests/and more.
• Detailed tactics programming in game.
• Gifts for the management of relationship with party characters. Well I'm not in love with that gameplay stuff but gifts are a welcome addition anyway.
• First real party pet well detailed and well developed during the adventure. Well I never played Fable 2 so I don't know for this one.
• Free specializations, well Dungeon Lords had that and probably better designed but this game is so unpopular that it doesn't count in the records.

EDIT:
I forgot but I think I have seen it in another CRPG but I don't remember which one, it's:

• Multiple beginnings depending of some character traits.

Lots of those things originated in MMOs. I would have loved there to be visible debuff icons on enemies as well, but then again, too much information isn't always good either. I did like the way sustained spells (auras) were handled though.

One inventory for the whole team OTOH is very subjective, I didn't like it at all. Reminded me too much of "unified ammo". Boring. More diversity, please. While I don't mind a unified inventory in the party camp, during travels with only a few companions it only serves to make individual item characteristics uninteresting.

Team selection was ok, but character selection would have been better if you could actually click on the character portraits, and not reach them only via those small arrows.

And yes, the different origins were the best part of the game. It's a common feature in MMOs as well, but it felt much more involving in DA. Hope other developers take note of that and improve upon it in future RPGs. :)

Well myself I don't like at all MMORPG gameplay, so I don't play them and didn't knew MMORPG was at the edge of game design… wow has been the last to bore me and will be the last forever. But now I remember that the different beginnings I could not remember was wow that I played 2 month.

I totally agree that DAO is far from perfect, like:

• Yes select a member through a little icon is old stuff and would be better. But with 8, 9? members sometimes and 4 some other, this require some thinking to work well.
• The stupid encyclopedia with entries that are numbers(!!)
• The impossibility to stack orders.
• The management of RMB vs LMB, I'm still not used to it and will probably never.
• The inventory as a list to always show labels.
• Ton of in game click are very badly managed, the visual doesn't match well the clicking area/volume of the object.
• The transparency management needs a huge improvement and much better has already been seen.
• The tiny transparency management is enough to involves many bugs because the transparency isn't managed for the move clicks.
• Some fights get repetitive.
• The visual diversity of enemies is too limited.
• Plenty texts notes are rather boring to read, too many, including some directly linked to a quest, not only many encyclopedia entries.
• The tactics thing need a lot more tuning and design thinking.
• It's good that DAO bring back dungeons a bit more and they aren't bad but dungeons design could be improved quite a lot. The awful repetition of the pack of monsters behind the door is an old classical flaw of fps shooters repeated here.
• And plenty more like those I quote in the thread about details I dislike a lot.

But well overall despite I curse DAO very often and I'm still very far to have finished it, I have a strong feeling that despite all the flaws it's just one of the best CRPG I ever played and also quite better than any MMORPG I played.

About MMORPG, not the right topic to debate about with me. For me MMORPG is all about boring repetition so players stay for long time without the design team have to work too much or player feel they get steal because they don't play enough long the game they pay every month. There's a lot of superficiality and it's over simplistic so admin or moderators don't get harass. Remove their multi play elements and MMORPG have a very poor CRPG game play. Or is this have really changed? I doubt a lot.

For the inventory I don't see the link with items specialization, it's just like unlimited inventory, a nice evolution to avoid boring inventory management. But well for sure it's also a matter of preference like some people like limited inventory and multiply clicks through containers to manage them. Not my own conception of fun.

The dog in Fable 2 was pretty good but, for the first, I think you have to go back to the Rogue-like games. (It was so nice when your little dog steals things out of the shop for you!)

How could you forget Dogmeat!!

I have played Rogue during the 80's and yes the dog was a nice stuff but the point is perhaps I didn't discover all the possibilities. Is this really more deep than the pets in Adom? I played those rather extensively and well it's not a pet really developed. It's a pet, with some features, not a party pet with full development. The same goes for the dog in Fallout 1, I could not remember well, but I don't remember it was a pet very developed. I could not remember well.

There's a sort of subjectivity of how much the pet feature is developed. For me pets is really an underdeveloped feature in CRPG. A sort of potential not yet very exploited. Well it's quite possible I'm wrong and that I don't know or don't know as well the rogue like game that did it. And well there's also Fable 2.

Which rogue like game get detailed pets?

EDIT: It's like relationship and story of party members that are well developed. For me it's BG1 and not the few first elements in older CRPG not even Fallout 1 that did it. Or that relationship meter with party members (not a feature I like) was an innovation of NWN2.

Titan Quest did it before.
Bio's very own KotOR had it.
KotOR again. You could swap party members in most of non-combat areas.
Been done better in KotOR 2.
Final Fantasy XII, of all games, did it.
T3-M4 in KotOR 2. Some cut content goodness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVizpchePVQ

And then there is Okku. :biggrin:
Which is a shame. Character development was freaking amazing in DL. I really wish a competent studio ripped it off completely and built a good game on top of it.
Been done in ToEE, although the openings were much, much less detailed.

Not that I'm complaining about any of these features, just saying they don't count as innovation.

Acually, I named my dog Dogmeat (since everybody else I know went for Barkspawn…).

Übereil

Lol ok so DAO didn't bring many tiny innovations. :biggrin: I haven't played some of those games but for those I played it's weird I didn't remember it was already here.

I played a large part of Titan Quest (before to get tired of it) and didn't remember sustained spells at all even now you quote it. I played a part of Kotor (not much in fact) and totally forgot the inventory thing and the party selection. For the multiple beginnings I totally forgot ToEE, yes that was quite tiny but still here.

I haven't played (and will not) Kotor2 (I couldn't play the 1 and it is often quoted as much better than the 2), FF series (repetitive fights need to be stopped particularly those random throw in your face constantly, hate this series only because of that and many JRPG for the same reason).

And for Dogmeat, ok in Fallout 3, not a game I played, for some reason I'm not appealed by it despite I own the collector edition!

…er Dogmeat actually appeared in the original Fallout!! :)

And in Fallout 2 as an Easter Egg.

Übereil

I didn't knew the dog in Fallout 1 was named Dogmeat, nor that it was coming from Mad Max. I could not remember well (as many things!) but I don't think the dog in Fallout 1 was a really detailed pet.

Maybe not… but who cares, it's Dogmeat!!!

Übereil

For me it's the reverse, I wonder why care it's Dogmeat it's just a weak reference through a name, that doesn't mean a lot.

Well, I played the game when I was 12(ish) and it was one of the first RPG's I played. That the dog was useless in every way and shape wasn't really anything I cared about back then.

Übereil

Woa 12, I don't remember when I played it but I was probably roughly 38, perhaps even older than your father! 12 was a bit young for such game, really.

Well, in the first game I did prostitute myself because woo, I got half the price on Vic! Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

(And my father was alive during WWII (as a tiny, tiny baby) so I doubt you're older than him.)

Übereil