Withywarlock

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines had one hint mentioned frequently, each character having their own reason to say the three magic words that would have the player guessing from the first act to the final: don't open it.

This isn't quite in the same vein as the OP likely intended to keep this in, but flight in World of Warcraft (WoW) was much a case of Pandora's Box. I'd go as far as to say it was one of the biggest mistakes, or at least regrets, for the developers. To keep it in meant open world PvP dramatically declined to the point where it's seen by the overwhelming majority of players as a burden (even those playing on PvP servers), and the world had to be designed in such a way that it looked good from all angles. To remove it would mean mass subscription die off, like when it was casually mentioned there'd be no flight during the Warlords of Draenor expansion during BlizzCon. Another mistake would be the Water Strider in WoW for similar reasons. In the Legion expansion, there's a lot of small bodies of water that interrupt land travel. To not use the Strider as one's main mount is unabashed insanity, once again forcing world designers to rethink their strategy because they simply cannot remove the mount from the game.

Echoing @Empire's thoughts there, I started out as a character who would solo quest sword 'n' board.... it's miserable. In a group however the role is very much appreciated as tanking is necessary due to enemy damage, particularly AoE. Last I played the Sorcerer with their summons was the best thing to play, and that was quite consistent with the launch. Also, don't neglect downtime activities like crafting if you need a break every now and again. You can level up by doing so, and it's effortless. You might even make a bit of money for your low level efforts.

Were I a PS5 owner I'd probably say no. It's a matter of 'too little, too late'. I appreciate that not everyone can or will emulate or find room or the money to buy an older console and just play that, but as for myself I'm long done with subscriptions in general where I can avoid them. This is one of those cases. Yo ho ho and a bottle of pop.

It's rare I say "the end of an era" in video games, but I think this it's worth saying this time. GamesIndustry Biz report that Electronic Arts and FIFA will go their seperate ways after 30 years of exclusively working together, now that the association said they wanted to increase the price to renew the license every four years by 1Bn USD. I know next to nothing about football, so I'd like to be enlightened: who would be the best suited candidate to handle FIFA, or rather, who is the most likely to acquire it? Will it be used as a strategic move by Sony or Microsoft to sieze the UK's hottest selling game franchise? Whatever the case, it's unlikely they can handle it much worse than Electronic Arts. I'll leave the betting to others. Link to the article: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2022-05-10-ea-and-fifa-end-nearly-30-year-old-partnership

Depending how liberal we're being with the term open world, the one that immediately springs to mind is Blighttown in Dark Souls Remastered. Painfully dimly lit, there's ogre-like creatures with heavy clubs that swing hard and chase fast. Some throw boulders as you're trying to navigate the poison swamp. There's poison dart-blowers, mosquitoes as tall as a Hollowed, natives humanoids that I can't begin to describe, and fire hounds. At least there's maggots that can easily be dealt with for easy Souls. The original version of the game was particularly hard to deal with because the frame-rate died a death in Blighttown, making it one of the worst locations in games for quite a while. For a more conventional open world title I would say Alcaz Island in World of Warcraft, at least during the Legion expansion where Hunters could tame the mechanical inhabitants... if they could surpass the turrets that would shoot down both grounded and aerial targets.

I have to agree with all the reasons @m76 mentions. There's no greater argument against celebrity involvement than how The Elder Scrolls Online panned out at launch. Not even Sir Michael Gambon could save it. There are exceptions to the rule; @Justin11 rightly points out how good a job Samuel L. Jackson did despite (or because of) the corny script, but then there's some celebrities who have distinct voices who lend themselves better to voice work. As to why it happens it's probably because they're too expensive and require too much time to work into the game. I think video games have plenty of room to make their own celebrities, especially with voice talent and motion capture actors.

Now you mention it, there's NPCs in The Elder Scrolls games who will - seemingly out of nowhere - just come out and attack. IV: Oblivion was particularly bad with this, with characters ranging from Mythic Dawn sleeper agents to characters framed for crimes you were somehow involved in. It's one of those things that doesn't really happen much outside of Bethesda's games - it's practically a unique trope of theirs that sooner or later someone will attack and is either because of a quest you've done, or is to become part of a quest. I feel it needs to be coined. Audens' Razor has a nice ring to it.

I like flight in GTA, it's a nice pastime. In MMOs however, it's rather controversial: convenient, but it means all the work the developers do is undone, it makes open world PvP infinitely harder, and very rarely is it used for any more than transport without its own restrictions or mechanics. I call it the Pandora's Box of Vidya: once it's added to the game it can never be removed.

I play it the original game at least once a year, either on the console itself or an emulator. I'm currently doing a Let's Play of the original trilogy, I'll begin the third game soon I wager. I've completed the Reignited Trilogy twice; once for a Let's Play and for my first impressions, the next time for my own amusement and completionism's sakes (getting all the achievements). I will likely play it again in the future, but it doesn't quite do it for me like the originals did.

That's a tough question. On the one hand I like the Animal Crossing route of choosing every single little thing to line my house with, and on the other hand I like the preset installments of The Elder Scrolls V: Hearthfire, or any of the house additions that you get in Fallout. Sometimes it's not worth the hassle to do it all yourself, and sometimes it's a nice downtime activity to put your materials to use.

Everything. Very rarely is it worth leaving something on the floor or on the body of an NPC because it'll be worth something to someone. Every little helps, and all that. If my pockets get full, it doesn't take that long to empty them. Auto-Loot, all the time! I can appreciate that. I just do it because it's force of habit. Eventually gold or whatever currency you can get from selling junk becomes pointless, but I still do it because old habits die hard!

I tend to do it as often as I can, and as said in a previous state if it fails I'll savescum until I succeed (if that's possible; some games autosave the moment you make your choice). Most every video game RPG has combat, I might as well enjoy some downtime from it and try and get some additional rewards out of it. I think the only games where diplomacy isn't always as tangibly rewarding as combat are Obsidian ones - in Alpha Protocol or Tyranny you might get less XP for talking, even if NPCs may be useful or give you feel good vibes for sparing later down the line. As for how I do it, persuade as much as possible for the first playthrough, intimidate/lie the second. Ultimately, whichever one nets me the most reward for the least antagonising response.

Absolutely, save-scum all the way. Strangely I can accept the consequences of failure in the tabletop, which I imagine is because of the group atmosphere. Were I left to my own devices I'd just read the adventure beforehand and cheat to maximise my rewards. Even more strangely is when I dislike the Dungeon Master pulling punches because I made a mistake that could prove fatal, like being a spellcaster flanked by martial classes. I get that I'm only semi-experienced but c'mon!

Indeed. I don't really mind these collaborations as long as what they produce is good. I think the time for me to get worked up about crossovers is long gone; Call of Duty hasn't had artistic integrity for God only knows how many years now so there's no sense me arguing about it from that point of view. ^^

It would help if I read the title, my apologies! Breaking Bad, as a GTA style game, I think could work. I doubt it would have anywhere near the scope and size of a Rockstar sandbox, but I could see an open world game working all the same. A BB game made by in the style of Telltale on the other hand... that I could go with, but then I'd say that of most TV shows I'd want adapted like Lucifer, The Collector, Doctor Who, and so on. 😅

I concur, though it's not far from what Call of Duty has already done in terms of collaborations like Attack on Titan and Judge Dredd (I'm sure there have been others). They even had Sarah Michelle Gellar play herself (styled after her most iconic role, Buffy) in one of the Black Ops Zombies modes, among other celebrities. It doesn't surprise me so much any more that this amount of advertisement is the way major gaming companies are going, and I'm sure it will continue to spread beyond Activision and Epic.

Grand Theft Auto could likely work as a TV show if it was less up its own arse about social commentary like it was in GTAV (see how George A. Romero was post-Dawn of the Dead). I think the potential for serious writing peaked in San Andreas/IV, however The Ballad of Gay Tony could act as the elevator pitch for a series in the wacky vein of GTAV. I could see a Tomb Raider mini-series about daring raids and more daring escapes, but I can't see episodes being 40 minutes long; I'm thinking more along the lines of 8-minute episodes on YouTube, like how Payday used to do them. If we're talking full on episodes and series, I'd like to see Resident Evil adapted, but more for how it happened rather than what we know it as today. I'd like to see the legal and political side of how the T-Virus came about, the medical and scientific side and all the morals that came with it, and finally how people dealt with it in the early hours/days. As I don't know much about Resident Evil (but would like to), that'd be a way I could wrap my head around it all. Off the top of my head my final suggestion would be We Happy Few, a game wherein people of Wellington Wells are forced to be happy after doing something terrible during the (Second World?) war. Seeing characters deal with the Orwellian world they have to live in, and attempts to escape it, would be interesting as either an anthology or full-blown serial.

My most consistent naming conventions began in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion with the spell creation. Like famous wizards in the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse, I'd prefixed my character's surname to spells such as "Napier's Lifeslaker" or "Napier's Hallowed Halt." Napier being a name borrowed from the historical 'warlock' John Napier, of whom I share a first name. If I name a weapon it's usually a '<noun><verb>' sort of deal that fits the weapon, like 'Thingslayer' or 'Putrid Gouger' or 'Baleful Gaze'. It's a fun thought exercise sitting coming up with the name; I dare say it's more fun than coming up with what it does when forging it!

I've not heard really all that many for myself, but I would look forward to hearing the Proms' takes on video game music this Summer.

It's quite possible Dino Crisis at least may make a return given the overwhelming success of Resident Evil in recent years. On the other hand, why compete with yourself by bringing back another survival horror game (see Electronic Arts releasing Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 in the same week, doing neither any favours). Onimusha: Warlords, a 2019 remaster of the original, may have been put out to test the waters and see if fans actually want another Onimusha. For all we know both are in development but they're keeping schtum about it. But this is your thread OP, why do you want them back? ^^

I don't know many, to be honest. There's Enchanted Arms on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 if you want that JRPG design. There's Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/Hong Kong, which I'm fairly certain were bgrid-based. The Age of Decadence is a very difficult grid-based tactics game also, but it plays much better outside of combat (definitely for the story and setting, rather than any other gameplay merits however). Finally, it's not something I want to recommend but there's also The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics. As for whether they're like Disgaea or not I couldn't begin to tell you. They're on my list of games to play at some stage, but honestly, I doubt my recommendations are all that similar. But when it comes to tactical RPGs, I know a handful of decent ones. I hope you get the answers you'd like from someone else here! ^^

It's one of my least favourite games to play that I desperately want to get into, likely due to the kickass music.

I think it's all but confirmed they're one and the same in some capacity, and it's all the more believable with how unbelievable Saints Row became. I'd be interested in a short game or DLC where we can be members of Ultor Corp, and how they have to deal with the worlds they're in, either Red Faction or Saints Row. The more serious and down-to-Earth (or Mars), the better.

I've been on about Dragon Age a few posts lately, but I must say that the way Origins causes its misery and horror to bleed in is fascinating. At first it comes off as a Tolkeinesque, high-fantasy romp that takes quite a few sharp turns out of nowhere. Upon further analysis you find desperate politicking, sometimes justifiable - if at first glance unspeakable - acts, and no small amount of metamorphis body horror as time goes on. I'm oft reminded why I wouldn't have fun playing that as a tabletop; a Game Master isn't bound to the ESRB or whomever when writing their adventures and the monstrous consequences therein.