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[marko river]

Originally Posted by Ohne Mitleid

The world could be a much worse place to be in.

I haven't heard anything positive about the world in a long time...

[Lulu_Jane]

You're just not looking hard enough Marko. Here you go

[Ohne Mitleid]

Originally Posted by marko river

I haven't heard anything positive about the world in a long time...

I think you missed my point. Compared to all of the other planets you've lived on... um...

Oh wait! Compared to all of the other lives I've lived... um...

Oh wait! When I was thinking about how great things were when... um... Hey! I think I hear my Mom calling me... <RUN AWAY!>

I clearly have an advantage over most others though. I can wake up every day, look in the mirror, and laugh... after I am done screaming, of course. And then the neighbors call the cops because of the screams, and then I explain it all to the cops about what I saw in the mirror and they nod amongst themselves, knowingly. Then I get to ride in the fancy car with the flashing lights on top and see some people who have handfuls of pills for me. I get to spend some "alone time" to gather my thoughts in the room with all of the padded mattresses on the floors and walls... and then (after I am out of jail) we all sit down together and have a good laugh.

So the world isn't really all that bad. Just don't believe everything that you hear, and listen up when people share things like what Lulu_Jane had to say. Very, very small things add up to very, very big things. Ask any ant.

[jfritzyb]

Originally Posted by red_avatar

A game such as Fallout 3 gets much higher rankings and votes than its older turn based brothers Fallout 1 & 2. Yet almost every RPG player worth his or her salt, will proclaim the older two games to be far superior in many ways. Myself, I can appreciate both approaches but as far as turn based RPGs are concerned, you can't do much better than Fallout 1&2 and they truly are great games so why do they fail to show up in most top 100 lists? The answer is simple: because this is a popularity contest, and this means popular genres will always bully the less popular ones in submission.

Flight simulators, turn based games, tycoon games, adventure games, etc. these are all genres which contain some incredibly gems that rarely make the big news. Just like democracy is heavily flawed because it's all about popularity above qualities, so is any ranking of games based on votes made by the public. Even on Abandonia, the public score is completely pointless. The biggest gems receive 3.5/5 and the mediocre crap receives ... 3.5/5.

Saying that Fallout 3 gets higher ratings "due to a popularity contest", is a mischaracterization. People who design these games also do polls with their people and on the net (no different then Abandonia does with the games hosted on-site). One must also take into account the possibility that not everyone votes or rates a game so while the numbers can be wrong, it is possible to obtain a working knowledge as to which game is more liked by "most" people as opposed to what game was disliked by "most" people. Concerning Fallout 3, what makes it unique is that it successfully blends 3D with an amazing storyline (something that does not happen very often with a lot of 3D-based games, possibly due to the fact that everything is done on the computer and therefore the video game project can finish more quickly and therefore, the deadlines would be quicker to meet).

It is also stated that "almost RPG player worth their salt will agree that Fallout 1-2 is far superior [to other turn-based RPG's]..." I challenge this assumption as Fallout 1-2 is not the only "superior" turn-based RPG game out there. If I'm not mistaken, Final Fantasy is a turn-based RPG as well and has a totally awesome plot, graphics, the works AND if I'm not mistaken, it's still pretty popular even today! However, putting Final Fantasy aside, there are other really good turn-based rpg's that are out there and to say that Fallout 1 and 2 are the only good ones worth playing is most certainly a stretch.

[red_avatar]

Originally Posted by jfritzyb

Saying that Fallout 3 gets higher ratings "due to a popularity contest", is a mischaracterization. People who design these games also do polls with their people and on the net (no different then Abandonia does with the games hosted on-site). One must also take into account the possibility that not everyone votes or rates a game so while the numbers can be wrong, it is possible to obtain a working knowledge as to which game is more liked by "most" people as opposed to what game was disliked by "most" people. Concerning Fallout 3, what makes it unique is that it successfully blends 3D with an amazing storyline (something that does not happen very often with a lot of 3D-based games, possibly due to the fact that everything is done on the computer and therefore the video game project can finish more quickly and therefore, the deadlines would be quicker to meet).

It is also stated that "almost RPG player worth their salt will agree that Fallout 1-2 is far superior [to other turn-based RPG's]..." I challenge this assumption as Fallout 1-2 is not the only "superior" turn-based RPG game out there. If I'm not mistaken, Final Fantasy is a turn-based RPG as well and has a totally awesome plot, graphics, the works AND if I'm not mistaken, it's still pretty popular even today! However, putting Final Fantasy aside, there are other really good turn-based rpg's that are out there and to say that Fallout 1 and 2 are the only good ones worth playing is most certainly a stretch.

I don't count the huge majority jRPGs as turn-based because ... well, they're not really turn based. For starters, most use power bars that fill up so it's not based on turns nor are there action points to be used. Almost no-one counts FF games as turn-based for a reason. You might as well say that the old Eye of the Beholder games are turn based because you each take your turn hitting monsters.

For the rest - you're skirting around the issue which is that a genre which is popular will always get more votes while a game that is less popular genre-wise and is not within the line of interest for many gamers, will get more negative votes even if both games are seen as great ones within their genre.

Fallout 1&2 are perfect examples because they're quite complex and deep and require effort to get into but not so much that it's daunting. But people used to simpler games might just as well give it a poor rating for being too hard and I've seen that all too often on sites with younger gamers, where they enjoyed Fallout 3 and decided to try Fallout 1 or 2 out of curiosity. Is it fair? Hell no. If you're not into deep turn based games, don't play them but, also, don't down-rate them for what they are. You shouldn't rate a game for the kind of genre it has (although its tempting with sequels that dumb down the experience *cough DA2*)