I see where you're coming from, but from what I remember in jrgps (I haevn't really played many in the past couple of years, so maybe i'm wrong about this) they didn't serve much more or a purpose. Sure it's a stop where you can buy slightly better peices of gear when you reach that new town sometimes, but in essence it serves the same purpose.

Most games i'd say ( I don't know of any exceptions ) have stores be as you said the place to offload your trash and stockpile some money. Maybe there's some new stuff in there that's a little better than whatever you're using but in every game I can think of the best gear is always found, or picked up off of bosses / enemies.

Shops are places to sell and restock, not totally gear yourself up. Maybe in the early stages of the game, and later on there's some marginally better gear if you haven't been able to find / pick up better things.

I haven't played Stalker, but from what I understand there's aren't really many people / towns so the fact that the store is more central or useful makes sense as it's part of the game's world / setting is it not?

I don't have any sources to quote or link to but i've heard that tales of vesperia was a big deal in japan. It was selling out all over. Maybe it was a contributing factor to 360 sales.

Edit: Oh sorry somebody already mentioned it above.

That sounds like it could be ideal.

It lets people who wants to advance in the main story now advance at their own pace, with no need to grind. At the same time, for the more harcore players, you'll have to work your way up to reach the depths of the hard content. Sounds like a great idea to me.

Hmmm interesting find. However it does say.

Coincidentally, the victory time was nearly identical to the winning time of the Oblivion champion, Chris.Linked Blog Page

And I thought Oblivion lasted a while, with a ton of content to see.

Also remember these guys know the game inside out. They probably skipped every possible bit of dialogue, combat, terrain, quests, everything they could have. There was mention of one guy knowing a trick, so i'm sure they used their knowledge of the game to expedite their progress in ways people won't find out about for a while.

I have to agree that does seem really short but if it's similar to the Oblivion speed run time ( I had no idea it could be beaten that quickly either ) then I'm not too worried.

I think the main point that we should really be discussing here is not if priacy is wrong or not, or if it causes or doesnt cause loss of profits. The problem here is that real paying customers are being given headaches and probelms to deal with because of the DRM and it has no effect on the people who obtain a pirated copy.

Just like with Bioshock when it came out, the person who took the time to go to the store, pay hard earned money for the game, got the shaft and had issues with trying to play the game. People who pay are the ones suffering as a direct result from it.

The truth is you can't stop piracy. I'm not saying they should just give up and not try to stop it, but my problem with it is that they know this method is not working, and only hurting paying cusomers, yet they keep doing it.

Think about it in a physical sense. If the game was a book, you buy the book, but you can only read it in three places. So you want to read it at home, at your work, and at your parent's house. Fine. But wait, say you're taking along bus ride, and you want to read it on the bus. But now you're not allowed. You have to call and get special permission to read it on the bus. But the guy who got a copy of the book can read it on the bus. He can read it wherever he wants, anytime, unrestriced. My point isnt that that guy didn't pay for the book, but that guy who did pay is being restricted. His freedoms are being taken away.

I don't have a solution for it, but clearly this isn't working. It can't get anymore obvious that its not working. They need to try something else. What they think they're accomplishing with it, I have no idea.

Looks great.

I wonder how much of it you'll be able to buy in the shops and how much you'll have to find.

I think he's referring to the fact that Amakusa Shiro was a real person, who was a christian rebel in Japan. He is being portayed in the game as an evil demon.

With regards to your questions, I wouldn't know sorry.

I think time limits can indeed add a huge level of immersion and a real sense of urgency in a game if done correctly. I have to say with regards to Dead Rising specifically I thought the time limit really added to the whole feel of the game. The point is you can't really do everything because you don't have enough time. You've got your back against the wall against all the zombies, and you're racing against time to get places and do things. It makes things you do that much more important. Because of this you're forced to make more important decisions with regards to story and the game. I think the game would have suffered if it didn't have a time limit. Then you could just kill every zombie in your path, and save everybody on your first run through, and probably never play it again. With that game you should feel the sense of urgency because in my opinion that's also a huge part of the whole zombie culture. You're surrounded by zombies! You need to get the hell out of there. No time to stop and smell the roses. Getting back to the theme of replayabilty, it means that the game an be replayed many times, to try going at it and trying to accomplish different things. Maybe that's not your idea of fun, and that's fine. But I found it totally added the game, and it's better off because of it.

Another couple of games that follow a similar design pattern with time being a critical factor is Samurai and Samurai 2 for the PS2. Mind you it was a little different, but you still have a limited amount of time you could do things in. It totally added to replayabilily, and again to me made the choices you made so much more important.

However with regards to Fallout 3, I don't see the game benefiting the same way. Those games were meant to be replayed over and over in a relatively small amount of time. To get an ending in those games you didn't have to play more than a few hours. Fallout 3 looks like it's going to be huge, and I don't think adding a timelimit for the game itself will be beneficial. As others have already said, the game has so much to explore and Bethesda's games have encouraged exploration and the freedom to play how you want to.

If used properly I think a time limit for certain events could make the game better. Perhaps it will be used just as your decisions. As i'm sure most of you know, some of your choices will cause certain portions of the game to be closed to you but open up different areas. Perhaps in some quests or events you would be limited by time, and forced to make a choice to react or not in time, opening up one branch of exploration/quests, and closing off another. I think that would be a good use of time limits in the game, but not a time limit on the main quest itself.

So I agree with youHardQuor, in that it can add lots of dramatic effect, and really immerse you in the game. However I think it needs to be done right, and it should be appropriate to the type of game.

Thanks, and thanks for the welcome.:)

I also forgot to mention how I really like the art style as well. I like how it doesn't take itself too seriously, yet it works really well. The graphic art as well as the voice work and music. That's one thing I thought Fable did well. Good production value on that side of things.