Thank you

Your second point is true. And it is a lot easier to give into the temptation of loading when it is possible. One possible solution of this would be a mod that checks how you die and then delete your saves. So you can still save and load, just not when you died.

That is like playing without ever saving.

Sorry, I gave up on the whole start the game over when your dead with Super Mario Brothers

No..thanks. Can't imagine any situation where that would be interesting. Would it also be no loading allowed except when stopping play?

Anyways no...god no. Why?

You can challenge my integrity, but you can't inpugn it. I occasionally play DID, especially after you need a little spice to liven up an old game. I'm a fairly old goat. I'm not neccessarily prone to giving into compulsive urges. If I make a decision, I stick to it, in life or games. See, to me it's a throw back to real RPGs. You know, the ones where you used dice and paper maps and stuff? I knonw many of you all probably never played pen and paper RPGs, but I never played a campaign anywhere where if you died, the GM said, Oops. Just kidding, We'll start that level over again. Some of them would rip up your character sheet. I personally feel playing DID is the closest you can get to PnP RPG greatness in a single player CRPG.


Right, said Fred, then Fred got dead.


This is a valid point. CTD and glitches don't count. If the enemies kill you you're dead. If crappy programming kills you, you reload.


See above. I don't make it a habit to be disingenuous. You're welcome to believe what you want, just like I'm welcome to not have to prove anything to you. Take my word or not. I could care less.


How do you handle character death in your PnP games? Or maybe you don't do PnP. Maybe that's one of the big differences between some of us older folks and the newer CRPG generation. It seems there's three generations of computer RPGamers:

A) The generation that played PnP RPGs before any CRPGs ever existed.
2) The generation that played the old style CRPGs that were text/turnbased.
III) The generation the has only played the newer style first/third person action CRPGs.

That makes the new generation, the old generation and mine: The really old farts. And to those of us that grew up playing PnP games for so many years before we even saw a CRPG, permanent character death was the norm. And we didn't even get Mario's three lives.

-Gunny out.

Nope, I'm not wasting more time in the Character Screen than the actual game. If I die, I'll curse at the game for a second and reload a save.

Edit- Theres no 'generations' in those terms. The sole reason a game didnt have saves is simply the games could not possibly save your progress at that time. There's a reason those kind of games arent that big anymore, most of us dont dig 12 hours straight of a game because we'll never be able to save until the game is over and restarts at the maint title page.

My character died in one of those. Of course remembering who dealt the death blow so that in it's reincarnation vengance could be assured.

However it made more sense in those games. However, my point still stands as I stopped playing those games about the time Super Mario came out......

That's what's great about being an "old fart"
You can claim whatever elitist BS you want, because noone can refute your wild ramblings.

It's like this "sock-hop, totally pure, soda-jerk" vision of the 50's that only actually exsisted in old Republican's minds.

That's what I figured. I also stopped playing PnP after a while, and never got into text/turm bases either. I loved PnP, but got too busy to keep it up (life svcks when you're too busy for your hobbies). When I eventually got a computer decent enough to play some games (an old Apple II clone. 128K FTW) I found I did not like text based games. The games and computers got better, Still didn't like the games. To me, playing isometric turn based games was more like chess, than what I loved about PnP games. I found myself playing FPSs for fun, but didn't relate to them fulfilling my desires to recreate that PnP feeling on a computer. Along came Fallout and Oblivion and I found what I was seeking. These games are as close to playing PnP in a single person CRPG that I've found. And just as a throwback to the old days, every now and then, I play DID.

Lol, I know. I can dig some old games, but the 'oldest' game I like is Either Pokemon or Ocarina of Time. Both use saves.

No!

Too much realism for my taste.

DID svcks in real life. Don't want it in games :nope:

I got a pretty thick skin. Flame away. Dont' bother me none.

I have an honest question for both of you: Have either of you gentlemen ever played a pen and paper RPG?

Honestly, no. I can date myself as far back as Leisure Suit Larry and Police Quest, but I think that's as far back as I go.

Would you say that most of the CRPGs you've played grant you the ability to save your game and reload your character upon death? And if so, would you agree that this is the basis of experience that you have with RPGs?

Uhh...no. This is a video game. I will reload a save if I manage to be ambitious but rubbish a bit too much.

Never. It just doesn't add anything for me, and it's more tedious than difficult. If I think up a good backstory for a character, develop their skills, their quirks, their morals, and then some Deathclaw Mother does unmentionable things to my insides, I want to keep the beloved character that I made.






You wouldn't be trying to use the Socratic Method by any chance?

I'm not into the whole "iron man" thing. Seems pointless to spend hours playing a game and then delete your saves just because you were low on health, and then fell five feet to your doom.

What mechanism does the attachment you have to your character take? Is it pride of the time and effort spent creating the character? The backstory? Is is the sense of accomplishment that your character plan funtions well in the game world?

-Socrates out.

Ok guys. Not getting any answers here. Let me show you all where I was going with this:

1. Back in the PnP days, before reloading saves came along, you were very vested in you characters. If they died, they were gone. Period. This made each character you played that much more precious. When you put the effort it takes to raise a Paladin to level 30 after years of character development, your character is almost a part of you. You cherish that character. You make certain you play that character in such a way that you don't recklessly endanger that character's life (unless you're RPing a reckless bravado). This attachment to your character is a deeper emotional attachment. I've seen grown men shed a tear when a 4 year old high level character dies.

2. Juxtapose this against how we build our CRPG characters. We plan their builds. We map their progress. We pride outselves on how good a characer model we've concieved. Of course, pride is a sin in some cultures. We know that we will coddle our characters throughout the game. We know they will die (esentially meaning our character build failed) many many times. What is our attachment to these characters? Is is on the same emotional level as above? Or does the knowledge that if they die they will reincarnate make us more reckless, less fearfull of their well being? If we are not fearfull of their well being, then what are we fearfull of for them? Making sure we pick the right perk? How does that reflect the relationship we have with our characters versus the relationship like the one I describe above?

It's cigar:30 folks and time for my nightly cordial and BFC. I'll leave you to ponder the above. Would playing dead is dead make our relationship with our characters stronger? Would that be such a bad thing? Would being truely fearful for their wellbeing not make it a much more intense Role Playing experience? Or are you content to carefully build your characters to level cap, obstensibly a disengenuous accomplishment, since in order to gain such exhalted sucess, you had to fail abysmally so many times?

-Gunny out.

No. Games are supposed to be fun, if i wanted something like that i would play a classic game or bomberman....

I'll give it a shot after a few characters. Oblivion and FO3 DiD games always ended with me falling to my death for some reason.

I won't be 1 death and done. I'll just try not to die as hard as possible, maybe with a set goal of like 10 (real) deaths the whole MQ. If I go over that I won't restart, but I'll be disappointed, and I'll get no pat on the back

yes .... i will.

But a few conditions have to be met first. DiD is the ultimate challenge (for me), and to that end, my completion to the game. It can be painfull in games with such massive environs. And it makes it rather easy to archive the game to its loving shelf when I have accomplished the feat.

There is ALOT of game here though to experience first. I will not play DiD with future DLC, its just to much.

There are five (that I know of) paths I will specificly play before DiD. All of which will be played hard/hardcoe. Siding with each of the factions, lone passivist, and complete mayhem. Only then will I sit down with endless cups of my favorite blend and work out a strat for my several DiD games. They will be slow, they will be thought out and they could be painfull.. lol. But its the way I enjoy RPG games. I also enjoy keeping a journal for the event.

My rules:

1. reloads only upon crashes, or game breaking stucks.
2. only allow myself 5 attempts at DiD.. if the game breaks me in 5, it stays on the HD until some long distant point in time.
3. no mods
4. no cheats
5. decisions are perm.

I know it may sound crazy to most folks.. but I have a special place in my collection of games specific to just this accomplishment of maschism. And when I look at my collection of Stalker, Silent Hunter, FO3 and various other "retired" games.. I know that I more than got my money worth and feel somewhat proud that I beat the game soundly.

haha.. it's fun for me. But then I have the time for such novelty.

cheers
d

I don't want to lose the character I built until I choose to, period :laugh:

I'm sure being emotionally invested in those characters is great, and I agree, it provides greater attachment and greater loss when you lose a good one. But the fact of the matter is that it is tedious to me. I want my first character, Rasputin, to live through everything unless the story itself dictates that he dies. I want all of the future characters that I create to do that until I get sick of the main quest. And still, I want future characters to survive with me until I'm bored with them.

No because once in a while I save and commit suicides jut for fun

Well, there is that too. But I usually do that on my genicidal maniac playthrough. That's my just for kicks/anything goes and usually my last playthrough.