Can't? Surely you can give the player as much freedom as you like outside of the cutscenes? But pragmatically? Sure. That won't work because too much freedom in this context would mean an impossible amount of cutscenes, unless someday some sort of sophisticated algorithm could generate cutscenes on demand based on whatever wacky things you decide to do with the freedom afforded to you.

But that's neither here nor there. I meant simply that you can have a lot of freedom, and a great story. As opposed to just a passable story. Though I'm open to criticism of course that my standards are too low by describing the first Fallout as having a great story. Admittedly though that might be true, but it does have a great and immersive world to get lost in, subjectively speaking. Perhaps story telling is more effective to a player immersed in the world, even a story which would otherwise be considered mediocre.

The Exile games(1/2/3 and Blades)...some of them don't have 64 bit compatible installers, sadly, and also some might not be available for DL as demos anymore on the official site.

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I love such(and also older style games)......if there is enough freedom the cinematics are just icing on the cake.

"Do you prefer to play the game and influence the outcome like a normal person, or passively watch cutscenes like an idiot?"

Yeah, not a loaded question at all.

The demos may not be available there any more, but the full versions of the games are, and there's probably some way to trick the game into thinking it isn't registered if you *really* want to play with the demo restrictions. (Making a game think it isn't registered is likely to be easier than making the game think it is registered.)

As for running the game, one idea would be to create a 32-bit virtual machine, put (32-bit) Linux on it, and run Exile under WINE. In some cases, particularly for older games, WINE may work better than modern versions of real Windows. (I believe the games are themselves 16-bit, so they wouldn't run under 64-bit Windows without a VM even if you did somehow get them installed.)

Story? Freedom? Gimme awesome loot!! (Yeah, I'm into ARPGs)

What I don't like with lots of open world games, RPG or not, is when they're mostly a sandbox for you to make your own fun. I don't want to make my own fun, I want to be presented with fun to have. What I don't like about JRPGs is when they require grinding to get the right ending or just to beat the next boss sometimes.

The way I see it, even if there are sidequests, the main story can still bog down the game when it comes time to progress the main story. Also, the sidequest cutscenes can still get in the way of actually playing the game.


I don't see the loot/ARPG connection. In fact, of the games I mention as fitting into that category (which I don't consider to be RPGs in the first place), Crystalis, Ys, and the Mana games are clearly not loot based. In fact, excluding consumables, both Crystalis and Ys only let you get a finite number of items during the course of the game.

In the meantime, there are turn-based loot-based RPGs, like classic Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Elminage Gothic, and even something like Grandia Xtreme (unlike the rest of the series, but I should point out that you still have to sit through 20+ minutes of cutscenes at the start to get to the action).

Actually, in practice, non-ancient (that is, SNES era or later) JRPGs don't require "grinding" just to progress.

Excuse me, but as you yourself said - story cut-scenes can bog down exploration. But it doesn't mean they will.

My main objection was for your claim that cut-scenes and exploration are not compatible. Games like Secret World Legends or Dark Souls show that you can have a process where cut-scenes and exploration are rather balanced.

Long as they are all there i don't think it matters.

But there were certain things in Oblivion that stood out as silly. Like when you're level 30 or 40, then you get stopped... by a bandit... in glass armor... demanding 50 gold. A number of things could use a little balancing in regards to difficulty.

There was also some bug where if you do 1pt of damage on self, weakness to magic while also healing self you'd get 4x healing?

I also remember in Morrowind early on there's enemies (wraiths for example) immune to normal weapons, but if you put any enchantment (1pt of light on it or something) it would be 'enchanted' and that 'immune' state goes away.

Ditto. I loved playing an enchanter where if i had issues, i just make an item to help me. Might be adding levitation to a iron shield for 10 seconds on cast/use to get to an area i needed, then selling the item later.

Reminds me, Morrowind there was a limit on the strength of enchantments depending on the item. Clothing was 1-2, rings 5-50, armor 10-20, weapons 5-20, etc. Made a number of items nearly pointless to invest in using. (plus paper had no power so making scrolls was impossible, yet you could buy them). Expensive clothing on the other hand could hold higher enchantments than basic clothing.

Although you could wear like 20 pieces on a single character, if enough enchanting points they could all hold decent enchantments. (10 being enough to hold a constant effect, 1pt healing does quite a bit, 3+ might feel game breaking) Let's see.

1) boots
2) pants
3) grieves
4) belt
5) shirt
6) robe
7) chest armor
8-9) left/right pauldron
10-11) left/right bracer
12-13) left/right glove
14-15) left/right ring
16) necklace
17) helm/hat
18-19) shield/weapon, weapon/weapon, 2 handed weapon
20) arrows (doesn't really count, but it is a slot)

And then there was also fun with summoning golden saints, boosting your strength 300 or something, and beating them barehanded to death, getting multiple gems filled with a soul AND being able to loot the body before it hit the ground :P

Actually, I believe that if you put the weakness before the effect affected by the weakness, the weakness won't actually work on the other effect. This doesn't make sense (and in Morrowind you'd use the reverse order), but it's the way it works.

By the way, one spell I wish I could make in Oblivion, but you annoyingly can't, even though it would make sense, is:
* Restore Intelligence 3 points on Self
* Restore Willpower 3 points on Self

Such a spell would make Will-o-Wisps less frustrating to recover from, but annoyingly, you can't put two separate Restore Attribute effects on the same spell, even though it would seem like a logical thing to do. As a result, after being hit with a Will-o-Wisp's stat damage attack, it's necessary to use two separate spells to recover from it.

If they didn't want exploits like Fortify Attribute 800 points (as was possible in Morrowind), a better way to deal with it would be to make it so that multiples of the same spell effect don't stack, and make sub-effects count as different effects; this would cut down on exploits. (From what I understand, Skyrim did this with potions, which makes more sense than Oblivion's 4 potion limit.)

Daggerfall was like that, except that you could add disadvantages to items to increase the enchanting capacity I could give an item a Cast on Use effect, but with the downside that the item makes me take sun damage while worn in sunlight; since it is never necessary to equip it, the drawback is wasted. Or, how about an item that repairs items while equipped (no need to use it), but that does damage on use (which never happens)? (It's also nice that, unlike in Arena, you don't need to equip items to use them. Morrowind has you automatically equip items when you use them, for comparison.)

Even if you could make such scrolls, it wouldn't be practical, because such scrolls are single use and the cost to make one just wouldn't be worth it (and if you're making it yourself, the required Enchant skill is not reasonable).

Hmmm... I remember buying and getting tons of 'expensive rings' they were my go-to for enchanting. Curiously fortify attribute wasn't the game breaking feature, it ended up being fortify skill which i got after buying a few spells in the Tribunal expansion.

+100 enchant (or bartering) for 2 seconds, multiple times and tweaked to get the best out of it. +800 was usually enough for bartering, enough to buy everything i wanted for a spoon. Enchantments was closer to +2000, to make enchanted items nearly 0% failure.

Of course there are some you don't boost very much before it's game breaking. I did Acrobatics at +400, jumped and hovered... then phased right through the wall into empty gamespace (this was in the mage's guild, so you know what I'm talking about probably).

Jump (spell) never go above 60, because... well... yeah...

Most of the skills are okay going to high levels, but some you don't.

I've clipped through the floor in some areas (including Mage's Guilds) just by jumping everywhere even without the aid of magic.

Also, don't forget those scrolls the game gives you early on that boost your Acrobatics by 1,000. Remember those? Yes, the developers expected to be able to get Acrobatics that high, even if just for a short time.

(It's a good idea to save before experimenting with those scrolls; the game even hints that using them might be dangerous.)

Actually, high power Jump spells are great for quickly jumping over large parts of the overworld, particuarly if you also throw in some Fortify Acrobatics on top of that. For best results, do your jump from a running start and start on high ground. Just make sure that you have some way to deal with fall damage (you don't want to meet Tarhiel's fate, right?).

I wonder, how much Jump/Acrobatics wouid be needed to reach, say, Daggerfall (in High Rock province), or the province of Somerset Isle, assuming one had a (theoretical) mod that added all of Tamriel to the game? (Such a mod would take a long time to make; just look at how long Tamriel Rebirth, which only aims to finish one province and is still incomplete, is taking. Also, imagine how massive such a mod would be.)

You only need one second. Also, 400 bartering is usually enough for me.

Also, you could boost your luck, perhaps with potions, to get many of the benefits of high skill; a high enough luck lets you make the same arbitrary deals with merchants that high bartering makes. Furthermore, luck also improves the strength of the potions you make, just like intelligence (I think you can see where this is going).

I believe 800 enchant is enough to reliably enchant items unless you are putting a Constant Effect on a Daedric Tower Shield (which has the drawback of being quite heavy anyay).

Freedom is real life going to go of own mind

I found when i did 1 second, it was treated as instantaneous and didn't last; Thus 2 seconds to give enough lag time to not only activate a second or third ring but also open inventory or start a conversation with a trader.

Mhmm... Probably. with 15 points on expensive rings, you can only get 1 good reliable enchantment on it anyways.

Though with the exe patch raising the limits from 100 to 1000 greatly simplifies doing multiple enchantments to boost the same stat/skill. The increased raised cost of multiple enchantments quickly becomes way too high.