@Korvus85@Metamania

Yeah if they make it too open it will start heading towards the sandbox style more than anything. Sandbox games are good but if they don't have a main story (the glue) at the sametime, then the whole game can fall apart. Mount & Blade was probably a more recent example that I played or even State of Decay, even more recent. Both games were great, particularly Mount & Blade, I loved the mechanics in that, I loved how you could go from being a bandit/peasant to marrying into royalty, to doing tournaments with jousting, to ruling over a kingdom and waging war against other factions. To add to that, 1 minute you could have a warband the next you could be someones prisoner trying to escape and then trying to find the rest of your compaions. M&B have some amazing mechanics that I want to see enter a FPS or Third Person perspective the entire game not just in certain situations. But there was no main story to give the player a real sense of direction. So you ended up all over the place and it eventually became boring. State of Decay sort of fixed that a little bit. I mean the main goal was to survive and they had the missions here and there and it did have a main story but the further you progressed in it the harder it got to survive and the survival mechanics were restricted in that you couldn't expand your base any further than what was already in the compounds. M&B on the other hand literally just threw you into an open world with no tutorial, no cutscenes, nothing.

I don't think the nemesis system will be too open to a point that it breaks the game. It's really a difficult area. The thought of having a story that changes dramatically as you play to a point that you can talk to your friends and all have different stories; is amazing, but then where does it end? What happens if story after story just chains onto 1 another? How would a developer compensate for that with different cutscenes and dialog for each branch if it was that open? The thought of having a story where just the enemies change with a bit of dialog changing here and there and maybe enemies changing fighting styles or ranks would create more solidity but at the risk of creating generic playthroughs that could end up being the same everytime unless you really look for those branching points. This is 1 of the reasons I never finished Skyrim, I get they want people to explore, but I can't be bothered exploring all the time just to find a quest line and this kind of made me feel like it was a waste of such a great game because I don't get to experience it all. If it didn't have the main story (as short as it was) the game would have crumbled in my opinion.

I hope they find that perfect balance. Tbh, a unique playthrough everytime you play would probably be more of an MMO thing, but like I said they're so outdated by the time they're released so that might be another decade or 2 away before we have that. A single player game on the other hand, I think maybe up to 5 completely different playthroughs and that's enough. I kind of get what you mean with GW2 but unfortunately the events never really had that many options. It was pretty much A, B or C. If it had a D, E, F, G maybe all the way to Z, it could have been much better, but yes they are dynamic in the sense that each time you do the event it has the possibility of going 1 way or the other. I want the possibility of it going 1 way and staying that way. I want to start seeing real consequences in an MMO. Something that supposedly EverQuest Next is trying to do but to what extent, I have no idea at this stage.

There's a problem with this. WB own the rights to LOTR, they went nuts a few years back and started buying out everything LOTR related. There's LOTRO but heh, that game was fairly grindy. I do hope WB will come to it's senses and outsource more of it's games to 3rd party developers. Otherwise if they continue like they do, we're gonna have more of the movies/books/games we love turning into Arkham Origins. I can't believe they went ahead and developed it without Rocksteady. And this is why I want Shadow of Mordor to exceed expectations too. Maybe they might take elements from that and create an open world LOTRO. Actually they could literally just use the same engine.

not as much difficult as it is expensive lol the problem is that Sony could change their mind at any moment, so even if you buy the equipment to bypass HDCP, a week or 2 later they might announce a patch for it. The equipment could be anywhere between $30-$200 just for the HDCP bypass stuff, which is usually a HDMI to DVI + Audio out converter or a HDCP stripper which are harder to get since HDCP Strippers are illegal technically. Capture cards set you back another $150-$250 as well, depending on your location.

I still care about the looks of graphics but for me it's more about whether it's visually appealing as to whether it's realistic looking or not. Of course the better the graphics the nicer the visuals but I mean like AC4 for e.g. had extremely nice visuals, the graphics for me having played on a PS3 were good enough. If they were better, than bonus but the visuals of the environments were breathtaking enough as it is. Pixelated games have to be pretty good to get my attention, I see too many indie devs lazily creating pixelated games and trying to sugar coat it by saying "we're being retro" lol I wouldn't mind if they would just be honest half the time. Bastion is another good example of non realistic graphics but the artstyle and visuals were amzing + it was 1 of the best indie games I've ever played so far. I just want more variety/dynamics in the story and gameplay now.

High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection, it was pretty much introduced when Blu-Ray came about. It's kind of stupid since by law devices with Blu-Ray need to have it yet there's not really any laws or authorities enforcing it. MS didn't use it since it was redundant as it can be bypassed if you purchase the right equipment (which I can't afford), Sony had it on the Ps3 and now have it on the PS4. It basically prevents people from recording stuff off their Blu-Ray devices, real pain in the arse if you want to do playthroughs on YouTube. If I record PS3 it has to be via component. Which is okay since most games don't do 1080P anyways and I probably wouldn't record in anything higher than 720P for bandwidth and storage reasons. Part of the reason I didn't get the PS4 launch day was because of Sony changing their announcements.

That's true to some extent, but it was 1 of the reasons I got GW2 for the dynamic experience. Needless to say it didn't meet any of my expectations although I still consider it the best MMORPG I've played this decade and the 1 before. I generally avoid newer MMOs now though, they always end up outdated before they're even released :/. EverQuest next looks promosing though, from what I've read on that 1 they're also going down a dynamic route and it actually sounds like this time it's up to the players. I personally think that not everyone should have the opportunity to experience an event, otherwise it's not as dynamic or at the least in a game like GW2 they could have made it that once you did the event it would take like 1 week or something to come back. I just wished in GW2 there was more consequences or more incentive to do the events. They made outposts that got taken over and removed a waypoint but I don't think it was enough lol. I'm really hoping that Shadow Of Mordor not only lives up to expectations but exceeds them & gets really high sales, because then other developers will want to do the same. xD I'm also hoping developers and people realise that graphics in games are pretty much at their peak and that other elements need to improve more now. Like dynamics, I think that should be the new craze and hype in the industry. Replace the good old days of "omg man the graphics on this game are so realistic I had to buy a new graphics card to play it" with "let me tell you MY version of the story when I played this game".

I'm still waiting for Sony to remove HDCP on the PS4 otherwise I'll get an XOne just to play this game (and also record it) lol I've already missed out on KZ Shadow Fall, I'll probably miss out on Infamous 2nd son too, don't want to miss this 1. Apparently it's also coming to PS3 and 360 though, so this creates even more concern for me, even though I'm still using those consoles, it makes me wonder how "current gen" this game will be :/

EDIT: OT: does anyone know how you get to a forum reply when you get a notification? It takes me right to the blog & I end up having to find the original forum post just to reply to other peoples replies.

I reckon it will be hard to pull off and because of that we won't see what actually had to be sacrificed in the game until it's release. I'm just worried that the dynamics of the game won't really be as dynamic as expected. Like with Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet kept boasting dynamic events and a lot of other dynamic elements like the story and how everyone would have a unique story. Come day of release, the dynamic events turned out to be repeatable events that weren't really dynamic to begin with and I ended up with the same story as a couple of other friends who were playing it lol

I'm not playing it, I'm watching someone play it though, and enjoying what I see so far.

I will say I'm not a fan of point and click adventure games like TWD and The wolf among us, but I feel there needs to be better balance between actual gameplay and storytelling in any video game. I just avoid these types of games though, I'd much rather watch someone play it than play it myself, as the lack of interaction won't hinder my experience as much apart from not being able to make decisions myself.

Beyond Two Souls is a whole different story for me (figuratively), I think David Cage is confused about what a game and a movie is. Again another 1 I'd rather watch than play, especially since most of the gameplay just seemed pointless to me, in fact it kind of forces you to focus more on "when is the next quick time event popping up?" and if they caught you by surprise they could result in more frustration than fun. Needless to say, I enjoyed Beyond Two Souls story, a lot, at least the variant that I watched anyways lol Not being able to see the story play out in a different way, doesn't bother me, as I watched something great. I understand some developers are trying to reduce some of the action to make the story stand out, but there needs to be a little more balance. Like for e.g. TWD S2 Ep1, the parts where you actually control Clementine, I don't see why they couldn't give you a little more control of the character and add a little more depth to the gameplay. On top of that, the dialog options are on a timer, if you don't pick 1 it automatically does something for you, if I was gonna play a game like that, I'd like to be able to take the time to choose my damn dialog options lol. Again I watched someone play the entire episode for that and the story was really good, even though I didn't watch Telltaltes TWD S1. I have TWD S1, I will probably try it eventually if I can be bothered.

Yes, but I'm still waiting for it to be done right, so until then I say they should keep going lol

I find it weird if a choice is given. Otherwise if no choice is given, it's usually to coincide with a story, like Tomb Raider, it has to be a girl because of the written story, which was about a women.

My response to this is to ask "Why the heck would you be staring at a characters backside in the first place if you were playing as a male?" lol Honestly, I play as male characters but, I don't stare anywhere I shouldn't be... It's more that if I'm given a choice to pick a character's gender, I'm going with male because I want the character to feel like my character as close to me as possible.

Maybe but I think they're concetrating more on Xbox and it looks like they will be for a very long time. They already dominate the PC market with Operating systems and day to day software alone so they can afford to concentrate any gaming resources towards Xbox.