Am 31.08.2011 10:39, schrieb Invisible:

> Quake 2. No XP.
>
> HalfLife. HalfLife: Opposing Force. Nope, no XP.
>
> HalfLife 2, EP1, EP2... No XP.
>
> Portal. No XP.
>
> Team Fortress 2. No XP.
>
> Call of Duty 4: No XP.
>
> Modern Warfare 2: No XP.
>
> OK, so that's a list of almost every computer game I've ever played. :-P

Ah, so the only computer game genre you've ever played is ego-shooters, 
plus one ego-shooter spin-off. Granted, they only very rarely have the 
concept of experience points.

Actually, the concept of XP is, to my knowledge, indeed limited to the 
so-called "RPG" (roleplay game) genre.


The basic idea behind XP (and the common element in computer "RPG") is 
that as you progress in the game, you unlock new skills (or improve 
existing ones) over time; but instead of unlocking all of them according 
to a fixed schedule as you go ahead, RPGs let you choose from a number 
of various skills; you'll typically never be able to choose all of them, 
so you'll usually specialize in some area(s) to fit your style of play. 
For instance, you may choose skills that will typically allow you to 
pick off your enemies one by one without them knowing what hits them (or 
even avoiding them altogether), while limiting your options in case they 
do spot you. Or you may choose to not bother about stealth, and instead 
choose to improve your strength and stamina to carry heavier gear and 
sustain more damage. (Just to give an example; usually the skill system 
of an RPG is much more elaborate than this. Imagine a concept like the 
player classes of TF2, but with lots more fine-tuning and improvement 
over time.)

In virtually all RPGs, you acquire "experience points" for accomplishing 
tasks, such as killing monsters or solving puzzles; once your 
accumulated XPs reach a certain threshold, you advance to a new 
"character level" (also known as "leveling up"), which means that you 
may add or improve skills again.

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Am 31.08.2011 16:50, schrieb Invisible:
> OK, I have to ask: How many times per week does this happen?
> http://xkcd.com/244/
> Does it ever get to more than 3 levels deep? Is it like Inception?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTEHqAeanw&feature=related

Make sure to also see parts 2-5 of 5...

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On 30/08/2011 10:54 AM, Invisible wrote:

> I don't know how big the game actually is, but I spent about 7 hours
> playing it yesterday and I don't /think/ I'm anywhere near the end yet
> (though I can't really tell).

OK, so apparently Steam records how long you've been playing. And it 
took me 12 hours to complete this game. I could actually have completed 
it faster, but I actually bothered playing and replaying some of the 
"challenges" over and over trying to get a good score.

It turns out, if you replay the same part of the game enough times, the 
narrator *does* begin becoming repetitive after a while. During normal 
gameplay, this never happens. It's almost like having a real human 
there. Only if you grind the same part of the game again and again do 
you start noticing it's a recording.

You know I said that Bastion has no jumping puzzles, and in fact you 
can't actually jump? Well, the last 20 minutes of the game is nothing 
*but* jumping puzzles! >_< Ever tried jumping at an angle of 60 degrees 
when the only movement controls are arrow keys? Hint: it's tricky.

The final level is actually like 6 normal-sized levels. Complete with 
transitions from one to the other. It's just that usually at the end of 
one level, you return to the hub, rearrange your inventory a bit, and 
then select the next level. In the final "level", you go through 6 
levels one after the other without a break.

This final level also has some pretty steep difficulty. Quite apart from 
the fact that the last 3 sublevels are basically endless jumping 
puzzles, there's a hitherto unseen level of close combat involved. To 
describe it as "challenging" would be an understatement.

The ending provides absolutely no sense of closure. You get given two 
options at the end of the final level. Once you complete the level, you 
get given two options back at the main hub. I picked an option, and I 
saw a freeze-frame painting and heard some lines of dialogue. Then the 
image faded to black, and the credits roll.

As best as I can tell, if I'd chosen the other way, exactly the same 
thing would have happened. (I haven't scientifically verified this yet.) 
I would probably have got a different painting, and a different set of 
lines. I doubt I would have got any more closure.

In short, a disappointing (but not disastrous) ending to a really cool game.

Before you start the final level, it actually warns you that there's no 
going back once you begin. Interestingly, after the credits finish 
rolling, you can return to the hub. (And from the canned dialogue lines, 
it appears that the game save is from just before the final level. In 
particular, I levelled up during the final mission, but going back in, 
I've done back down a level.)

I had assumed there was much more of the game remaining because I 
haven't completed more than a fraction of the optional stuff. You can 
earn money to upgrade weapons, and I never earned enough to upgrade more 
than a fraction of my arsenal. (Not that there's much point; once you 
have a really powerful weapon, why would you bother upgrading the weaker 
ones?) And if you earn enough "XP", you gain a level. The only effect 
this has is that you can activate more powerups at once. (Which you have 
to return to the hub to do.) You can activate any powerup at any time, 
it's just you can only use so many at once.

The highest possible level is level 10, and by the time I completed the 
game I had only reached level 5. Similarly, most of my weapons had been 
upgraded to level 2 or 3, out of a maximum of 7. There's still a 
stackload of "vigils" I haven't got yet, and a bunch of items I 
collected which I didn't have the cash to "repair" yet.

Still, I guess that's better than Assassin's Creed II. Initially I 
couldn't afford anything, but by about half way through the game, I had 
literally purchased every item that you can purchase. Even the useless 
ones. (There's an "achievement" for purchasing everything. Obviously I 
initially only purchased stuff worth having. But eventually I purchased 
everything, all at once, just for something to spend my money on.)

I guess having unfinished stuff gives me a reason to keep playing the game.

For example, Bastion has several "challenges". Basically you wake up in 
a room, and increasing numbers of enemies pop up out of the ground and 
attack you. You earn "XP" for killing them, and if you survive a whole 
wave you earn a crock-load of money. (It's unclear to me whether you get 
to keep all this stuff, or only if you survive all the way to the end.) 
You can also visit the shrine and activate "idols" to make the challenge 
mode harder. It makes the enemies faster or more health or whatever, and 
you get more XP when you kill them.

I found the easiest challenge, and then activated *all* the available 
idols. At the same time. (Interestingly, I'm short of two idols. No idea 
how you get those, given that I've searched every level...) I fired up 
the easy challenge. I lasted 12 seconds. Literally. Damn!

I've yet to complete either of the other two main challenges. (Mainly 
because I've yet to discover a way to kill Anklegators.) I've had a go 
at all of the "proving grounds". (There's one for each weapon, and since 
I've collected all the weapons, they're all open to me.) They range from 
quite easy to laughably difficult. Difficulty isn't directly related to 
how powerful the weapon is.

Completing the game also actives a "special new game option". I haven't 
tried it, but apparently it lets you do things like start a new game 
with level 10 skill, all weapons available, all upgrades unlocked, etc.

I quite like the way that for each weapon upgrade, you can choose 
between two options. You can make reloads faster, or you can increase 
clip capacity. You can increase damage or increase rate of fire. You can 
increase accuracy or increase spread. Things like that. (My personal 
favourite is the upgrades that make hits continue to deal damage for a 
short period afterwards...)

The thing with the distillery is interesting. You have a selection of 
"spirits" available, with names like "Stabsynthe", "Cinderbrick Stout", 
"Bastion Bourbon" and so on. When activated, each one gives you some 
advantage. (E.g., there's one that gives you +15% health. Another lets 
you carry more potions with you. Another makes stray coins magnetically 
attracted to you...) Each time you earn enough XP, the number of spirits 
you can activate at the same time goes up by one.

They could have just had a menu with a tickbox for "add 15% health" and 
so forth. But instead, they made it a "distillery", and they make you 
collect the various spirits before you can use them, and so on. It's a 
nice touch. (Although one that isn't /explained/ especially clearly.)

I wonder if there'll be a Bastion II? I'd buy it...

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On 30/08/2011 10:59 AM, Invisible wrote:

> Also... Is it just me, or does the music in that video sound
> suspiciously like it's a rehash of Seven Lives by Enigma?

Hmm.

> This music doesn't appear anywhere in the game, as best as I can tell.

Yeah, it does.

> The in-game music appears to be completely original - and rather good.

I still stand by that assessment.

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On 8/31/2011 12:05 PM, clipka wrote:
> In virtually all RPGs, you acquire "experience points" for accomplishing
> tasks, such as killing monsters or solving puzzles; once your
> accumulated XPs reach a certain threshold, you advance to a new
> "character level" (also known as "leveling up"), which means that you
> may add or improve skills again.

Mind, there are some exceptions. Eve Online, for example, doesn't have 
XP, but it does have a sort of equivalent. As you add skills to the 
training queue, those skills improve, a set number of points over time, 
eventually giving you a "level" in that skill. Literally everything from 
how well you mine ore, to which ships you can fly, and how accurate your 
weapons are, effective your armor/shield, etc. may be, and so on, is 
determined by which of these you spent time "studying".

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On 8/31/2011 7:50 AM, Invisible wrote:
> It would be nice if computer games could be a bit more open-ended like
> this. There are a number of reasons why they can't (in the foreseeable
> future):
>
> - The real world is far too expensive to simulate accurately. You have
> to simplify it down, which basically means removing lots of possibilities.
>
> - In the real world, you're generally fighting against other humans. AI
> still cannot even begin to approach that level of intelligence. (E.g.,
> if I *did* use chairs to block the door, the AI would be utterly
> baffled, and would never figure out a solution.)
>
> - In the real world, I can use anything I can lay my hands on. In a
> computer game, I've got, like, a dozen buttons and a mouse. Very hard to
> come up with a general control framework with such limited controls
> available.
>
> Those are the ones that immediately spring to mind, beyond "it would
> also totally screw up the story" (which is also intractably hard for a
> mere computer to sort out).
>
> I note that while it's completely 100% possible to play computer games
> with other humans, I tend to prefer playing them by myself. I guess
> because that way it's more like reading a book. Or maybe just because
> finding decent people to play with is so hard.
>
Well, an alternate to a "game" is an RP sim. Second Life has a number of 
them. The one I am in, when work isn't screwing that up, is post a 
apocalypse world, set "loosely" in the remains of LA. A coven of 
vampires is nominally in control over some parts of the city, demons are 
wandering around every place, angels have shown up, but can't quite work 
out what is going on (the closest answer anyone can get out of them is 
that the 'throne of heaven is currently vacant'), and every other sort 
of thing that goes bump in the night has come out of the woodwork. The 
major of those later groups being Lycan, Undead, Neko (cat people), and 
cyborgs.

The skill system works a bit like Eve, in that the longer you are 
"online and interacting" the more advanced your skills become (in this 
sense XP is being used, but except for turning in recordings of things 
you have done in the roleplay, and getting rewards for that, its mostly 
just ticking along at a set rate). Once you "level", you can pick from a 
number of skills for that level. Melee is possible, as is guns, but.. 
there are some issues with Second Life's servers which can lag the 
later, so, when possible, the RP has tended to avoid a lot of combat. 
Sane people also stay out of the main city, and in the outliers, due to 
similar lag issues... Too many people in one sim, basically, but its 
improving, slowly.

Basically, as a 'game' its pretty damn open, with the only rules being 
to stay "in theme" with what is going on in CoLA. But, there are several 
other similar systems around, and probably close to a thousand (or more) 
sims running some sort of combat system, with roleplaying going on, 
hundreds of them based on the same Community Combat System as CoLA has.

http://ccs-gametech.com/

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On 02/09/2011 12:21 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Basically, as a 'game' its pretty damn open, with the only rules being
> to stay "in theme" with what is going on in CoLA. But, there are several
> other similar systems around, and probably close to a thousand (or more)
> sims running some sort of combat system, with roleplaying going on,
> hundreds of them based on the same Community Combat System as CoLA has.

That sounds more or less like the FI2 syndrome: A game that's so "open" 
that not only can you do anything, but that's even what you're 
/supposed/ to do. In other words, there's no goal. You just make one up 
and try to attain it. Which is incredibly unsatisfying. (Or maybe it's 
just that FI2 was a really bad game, I don't know...)

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> This final level also has some pretty steep difficulty. Quite apart from
 > the fact that the last 3 sublevels are basically endless jumping
 > puzzles, there's a hitherto unseen level of close combat involved. To
 > describe it as "challenging" would be an understatement.


I found the last level rather trivial, but that's because I had upgraded 
the Calamity Cannon all the way.


 > The highest possible level is level 10, and by the time I completed the
 > game I had only reached level 5. Similarly, most of my weapons had been
 > upgraded to level 2 or 3, out of a maximum of 7. There's still a
 > stackload of "vigils" I haven't got yet, and a bunch of items I
 > collected which I didn't have the cash to "repair" yet.


That's because...


 > Completing the game also actives a "special new game option". I haven't
 > tried it, but apparently it lets you do things like start a new game
 > with level 10 skill, all weapons available, all upgrades unlocked, etc.


This option doesn't start you at level 10, it leaves you where you are 
and lets you continue to level up and upgrade your weapons.


 > I've yet to complete either of the other two main challenges. (Mainly
 > because I've yet to discover a way to kill Anklegators.)


Run or roll over them to make them pop up, then turn around and do some 
damage quickly.


 > (Interestingly, I'm short of two idols. No idea
 > how you get those, given that I've searched every level...)


I think they're in the shop.


  - Slime

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On 03/09/2011 10:16 PM, Slime wrote:
>  > This final level also has some pretty steep difficulty. Quite apart from
>  > the fact that the last 3 sublevels are basically endless jumping
>  > puzzles, there's a hitherto unseen level of close combat involved. To
>  > describe it as "challenging" would be an understatement.
>
> I found the last level rather trivial, but that's because I had upgraded
> the Calamity Cannon all the way.

The Ura are fairly easy to kill. The problem is more that they tend to 
surround you, and you can only shield yourself from one direction. I 
ended up dying a lot.

Oh, and the jumping puzzles. Given that the controls only let you move 

(Although usually not fatal.)

>  > Completing the game also actives a "special new game option". I haven't
>  > tried it, but apparently it lets you do things like start a new game
>  > with level 10 skill, all weapons available, all upgrades unlocked, etc.
>
>
> This option doesn't start you at level 10, it leaves you where you are
> and lets you continue to level up and upgrade your weapons.

Just hitting "continue" after the credits finish rolling does that.

I was mildly annoyed to discover that you can't start a new game without 
discarding the old one. Still, I guess it makes the game design easier. :-P

>  > I've yet to complete either of the other two main challenges. (Mainly
>  > because I've yet to discover a way to kill Anklegators.)
>
>
> Run or roll over them to make them pop up, then turn around and do some
> damage quickly.

It's slightly tricky to get them to pop up yet miss me. However, what I 
can't figure out at all is how to have them miss me, yet still be close 
enough to injure them. The War Machete is great in that it continues to 
deal damage after they go back underground. But you have to be *really* 
close to use it.

The only thing I can think of is to use the Brusher's Pike. But then, 
how to stay alive long enough to get to that part of the challenge?

>  > (Interestingly, I'm short of two idols. No idea
>  > how you get those, given that I've searched every level...)
>
>
> I think they're in the shop.

Some of them are. But I've cleaned out the shop now. Apparently I didn't 
pick something up along the way or something...

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> The ending provides absolutely no sense of closure. You get given two
> options at the end of the final level. Once you complete the level, you
> get given two options back at the main hub. I picked an option, and I
> saw a freeze-frame painting and heard some lines of dialogue. Then the
> image faded to black, and the credits roll.
>
> As best as I can tell, if I'd chosen the other way, exactly the same
> thing would have happened. (I haven't scientifically verified this yet.)
> I would probably have got a different painting, and a different set of
> lines. I doubt I would have got any more closure.
>
> In short, a disappointing (but not disastrous) ending to a really cool
> game.

I tried this. Turns out both of the two choices you have to make right 
at the end do have a small impact on the final end sequence. But given 
that this sequence is just a slide-show anyway... not much sense of 
achievement there.

Then again, it's such a great game to play in the first place...

> I had assumed there was much more of the game remaining because I
> haven't completed more than a fraction of the optional stuff.

> I guess having unfinished stuff gives me a reason to keep playing the game.

I have now upgraded almost everything to maximum. I've completed every 
single one of the proving grounds - eventually - although I only got 1st 
place on a few of them.

> I found the easiest challenge, and then activated *all* the available
> idols. At the same time. (Interestingly, I'm short of two idols. No idea
> how you get those, given that I've searched every level...) I fired up
> the easy challenge. I lasted 12 seconds. Literally. Damn!

> Completing the game also actives a "special new game option". I haven't
> tried it, but apparently it lets you do things like start a new game
> with level 10 skill, all weapons available, all upgrades unlocked, etc.

Apparently "special new game" lets you restart the game from the 
beginning, but with all the weapons and XP you've already collected in 
your current game. Needless to say, walking around the opening levels 
with a level-7 calamity cannon and level-7 fire bellows means that any 
enemy that wants to take you on is going to get their stuff messed up. >:-)

Also, I never did find those last two idols. But restarting with the 
"special new game" option gives me the last two.

There's an achievement for completing each of the three dreams. There's 
another for completing each dream with any 5 idols activated. I now have 
all of those achievements. ;-)

There's also an achievement for completing a dream with all 10 idols 
activated. Now that I've *got* all the idols, I can attempt that. 
Unfortunately, one of the idols turns off health tonics, making the 
dreams impossible to complete. So I can't obtain the last few 
achievements. Even so, I've had a lot of fun playing Bastion, and 
wringing every last drop of gameplay out of it.

> I wonder if there'll be a Bastion II? I'd buy it...

I still stand by that assessment. ;-)

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