Warhammer Quest iOS info

metalface13 wrote:

wice wrote:

metalface13 wrote: OK, let me understand this: if a boardgame was converted into a videogame by experienced developers, looks good visually, and is streamlined at places where streamlining doesn't take away anything from the experience, then no one should be allowed to feel disappointed by the streamlining of parts that takes away from the experience for them. Everybody should feel exactly the same about it as you do, or, if they don't, then they just should shut up and go play the OOP boardgame that they have no chance to get anywhere, at least not under 200 dollars.

Is that what you are trying to say?

Would I prefer it if the world consisted entirely of clones of myself? Yes. I think that highly of myself.

What I'm trying to say is that this is a video game. Not a board game. It's based on a board game, but it's still a video game. The beauty of a digital format is all those calculations can run under the hood. Is calculating the odds part of the game? Yeah. Does it have to be represented by dice rolling? Can't a simple "66 percent chance to hit" suffice? If you have to show dice, then you have to show character stats, which means the UI gets clogged up by showing your full party stats on the screen or some kind of sliding trays or you have to dig through some menus to pull it up. Cutting out the dice on the screen really streamlines a lot of that.

Getting upset about no virtual dice just seems silly. What about a virtual character sheet and pencil so you can use the touch screen to handwrite in your stats, skills, experience, treasure etc? How far do you have to take this physical to digital conversion? You don't see Neverwinter Nights players get upset about not seeing a d20 bounce across the screen. You also don't see fans of the Starcraft board game upset FFG didn't include little plastic mice for players to frantically click while making their moves.

Whatever, man. Yes, apparently it's a video game based on a board game, and I'm pretty sure that video game fans will be happy with that. I just hoped it to be a faithful adaptationof the board game (like, you know, a lot of other board game adaptations, that are completely faithful to the original), so I'm disappointed, because I love dungeon-crawling board games and I was excited to be able to play Warhammer Quest at last, but I don't really care for turn-based strategical/tactical video games. So I'll probably pass on this one. Have fun with it, but it's not for me, and if you feel the need to insist that it's ridiculous, then please give birth to a hedgehog.

BTW, it's completely unfair to bring up Starcraft, or other video-to-board adaptations, since obviously video games can do a lot of things that board games cannot, while it's perfectly possible to do everything the other way round.

BTW2, if there's something I don't like in CRPGs is exactly the obfuscation of background RPG mechanics. Of course, most modern CRPGs have nothing in common with pen-and-paper RPGs, they usually feature real-time combat and dexterity elements, so there wouldn't be any sense to simulate rolling dice in them. I just wish there were some CRPGs that still do that.

Hedgehog baby shower will be next Saturday. All are invited.

Thanks metalface - great stuff from Playdek.

Review on QT3: www.quartertothree.com/fp/2013/05/29/in-...-no-dice/#more-22031

Tom's review is exactly what I was afraid of when I mentioned I was pissed that they don't show you the die rolls. Looks like the black box approach they took is worse than I thought

It strikes me that this whole dice thing is the same as the argument from people who just don't understand why filmmakers can't just open a comic book and film it panel-for-panel. Or why every single word of dialogue in a 400 page book is not present in an adaptation. It's a different medium. It's an adaptation. You make it fit the precepts of where you are porting it to.

Some board games can work fine as almost 1:1 ports. Like Summoner Wars, for example. Others would not, and do better when they take on more of a video game aspect. Like Eclipse and possibly WHQ. Talisman is an example of a 1:1 port that really kind of sucks.

I do think that there should be some transparency, but that's because I'm coming from board games. Folks that have never played WHQ or similar games likely could not give two shits whether they rolled a four or a five. They want the result.

Chick is correct that there should be a manual that explains the rules (like the turn process). There should also be an option to see the RNG and keyword effect results like there is in Blood Bowl. But these are board game things, not video game things. And WHQ is very specifically supposed to be a video game.

Like I said earlier, I do kind of wish that they didn't associate it with the WHQ board game and just made it a Warhammer video game...that way, the board gamers wouldn't be crying about not seeing a dumb ass animation of dice on the screen, which I think is utterly fucking stupid.

Eclipse is the only game that shows die rolls in an effect and visually compelling way.

Michael Barnes wrote: Like I said earlier, I do kind of wish that they didn't associate it with the WHQ board game and just made it a Warhammer video game...that way, the board gamers wouldn't be crying about not seeing a dumb ass animation of dice on the screen, which I think is utterly fucking stupid.

Eclipse is the only game that shows die rolls in an effect and visually compelling way.

Why is showing your die results stupid? Every board game conversion that I've played lets you see your die rolls. Unless you're talking about having to wait while virtual dice are being rolled on the screen, which I agree would be stupid.

We're on the same page- seeing the results is fine. Seeing the dice roll is fucking stupid.

Like I said, the way Blood Bowl does this is the best- it shows a log of what happened, what effects went off, and what the die results (and targets) were. It's inobtrusive, and it can be turned off completely if you don't want to see it.

I like how Eclipse shows the rolls as part of combat animation and on a chart so you can visually see what happened. That's smart stuff. But it's really video game-specific stuff too.

You're talking about the PC version of Blood Bowl? (I think that's the only one). I was thinking about getting it but Bill Abner says the AI sucks and since I'm a single player guy I never picked it up. But the way you describe the way it does the die rolls sounds exactly like the way I wish Warhammer would do it.

Well, if you're terrible at the game anyway, you won't notice the AI being not good. I like it, my problems with it are more because it has some pretty crude UI/design issues. The real-time game is terrible, but the "classic" mode is effectively playing Blood Bowl with some animations and automation.

Come to think of it, it actually does show the tackle dice.

Yeah, Blood Bowl does show tackle dice, but it doesn't show any agility rolls (picking up the ball, passing, dodging, "going for it") but it does a poor job of showing how tackle zones affect those rolls. It shows the passing modifiers great, the others, not so much.

If you're going to get digital Blood Bowl, buy it for PC. You can play leagues online (and there's way more teams if you buy the right version). On Xbox you can play one-off games online, but not leagues. You can play with the team you're going through a campaign with, but you won't get any experience for it. The AI is OK, I decided to play with Wood Elves on hard to give myself a challenge and it's much harder than playing with dwarves or chaos on medium that's for sure. I've even lost some games. The problem with the AI is that it's pretty boring. It plays almost all of the teams the same: Go for the cage. Granted there aren't a lot of agility teams, but the AI could be a lot more proactive with Humans, Wood Elves and Skaven.

I agree about not needing to see dice rolls or even a dice roll log in Warhammer Quest. If I hit I hit, if I miss I miss. But it does sound like it would be nice if it had more of a rulebook to explain the same things Michael mentioned.

Believe it or not, people are enjoying WHQ. My brother called me tonight on his way home from the gym, he played for 1.5 hours while working out. He's a little bit more of a Euros kind of guy than I am, but he's really enjoying it so far. Even playing on hard difficulty.