I Think I'm Ruined/Spoiled... [Old Games Rant]

AlBQuirky

I have LOTS of old games on my PC, many from GOG. When I attempt to play them, I find the level of "quality of life" quite lacking.

Basically, I appreciate that old games came with thick manuals. I enjoyed browsing through them before ever getting into a game, just to get the basics down. Usually, though, most lacked any in depth mechanics information. When I boot up a game, I want to play that game, not alt+tab out or pause to look up something in a manual. I love the "mouse hover info" that has been implemented with newer games. I enjoy the in-game help that many have implemented.

I've attempted to play Fallout 1&2, but can't get the hang of them. So many interface buttons with no idea what does what. I've attempted Deus Ex and not gotten far. Civ 2 and 3 are quite different from original Civilization. Then I have all of the old Star Wars games just sitting as I load them up and have nary a clue as what to do

On a positive note, I've enjoyed getting into Beyond Good & Evil, an old game I did not seem to find these troubles with

Now, the old games I played when they were new are the same old games I remember. But remember Star Wars: Galaxies and it's DOS-like command line? I could never play that game today. Doom and Quake takes some getting used to, but I used to love the "no mouse" play of those games (arrow keys to move and ALT or CTRL to fire). But I am quite out of practice for this now

I realize I basically just need to "git gud" and become familiar with these old games, retrain my gaming muscles, but I want play games, not learn them for hours (days?) before getting to enjoy them.

Do others feel this disparity with old games, too? (Yes, I'm seeking validation on an Internet message board )

TheScavenger

It depends on the game

Simcity 4 is incredibly easy to get into. And with mods, I personally like it more than Cities Skylines (but thats mostly cause the traffic AI in Skylines is terrible). I also like the region system of Simcity 4, which cities skylines doesn't really have. Simant is still the only good ant simulator, and that is really basic. I still play Morrowind, which I find to be better in many aspects than Skyrim. I play an old RTS called Warlords Battlecry 3, so old and yet the single only rts with an actual persistent hero character you keep forever.

Mostly I like the older city builders/strategies. I don't get into the newer ones as much. I play starcraft 2, but mostly cause my friend does. I however vastly prefer newer RPG games than older ones with sometimes an exception (like Morrowind). And I would never want to play an old FPS game, the new FPS's are just too good with their mechanics.

Though I do play roguelikes too...and they are pretty archaic and often super confusing with so many buttons+hotkeys.

Ungood

Yup.

The lack of in game info is not.. in my opinion.. a positive thing for games.

The modern trend with tool tips and info provided for you in-game as you play, is an inspired feature that keeps players in the game itself, as opposed to needing to read guides and alt-tab their way though a game.

Personally, ideally, I think there should be a feature that unlocks the info as you play the game. IE: Once you solve a puzzle, your character/account now has the info in game how to solve it, or records what some ingredient does, etc, and you no longer need to go to a guide to look it up.

Just my feels on that.

TheScavenger

Ungood said:

Yup.

The lack of in game info is not.. in my opinion.. a positive thing for games.

The modern trend with tool tips and info provided for you in-game as you play, is an inspired feature that keeps players in the game itself, as opposed to needing to read guides and alt-tab their way though a game.

Personally, ideally, I think there should be a feature that unlocks the info as you play the game. IE: Once you solve a puzzle, your character/account now has the info in game how to solve it, or records what some ingredient does, etc, and you no longer need to go to a guide to look it up.

Just my feels on that.

Yeah having the character learn it in-game be neat. Though these days, the vast majority of gamers get confused for 1 second and then google it. And sadly I'm not joking. It literally takes my friend 1-2 seconds to give up and google it. A good guy, and my friend, but I was over at his place and he would constantly google things. And he is pretty much vast majority of gamers out there.

So most people would still google on how to do things anyway. 

Don't need to buy guides or anything, people just use google. 

Personally, I prefer taking my time and figuring it out for myself. I do google an answer if I get frustrated and annoyed or/and start going in circles non-stop, but that usually takes a while.

AlBQuirky

Ungood said:

Yup.

The lack of in game info is not.. in my opinion.. a positive thing for games.

The modern trend with tool tips and info provided for you in-game as you play, is an inspired feature that keeps players in the game itself, as opposed to needing to read guides and alt-tab their way though a game.

Personally, ideally, I think there should be a feature that unlocks the info as you play the game. IE: Once you solve a puzzle, your character/account now has the info in game how to solve it, or records what some ingredient does, etc, and you no longer need to go to a guide to look it up.

Just my feels on that.

"Account based" info sounds like "always connected" type DRM. In a single player game, this "innovation" is not a good foot forward, in my opinion.

Take Skyrim as an example. Why does my "brutish warrior" know what my "intelligent mage" found out, especially puzzle-wise?

That kind of sounds like "gaming the game" to me

AlBQuirky

TheScavenger said:

Ungood said:

Yup.

The lack of in game info is not.. in my opinion.. a positive thing for games.

The modern trend with tool tips and info provided for you in-game as you play, is an inspired feature that keeps players in the game itself, as opposed to needing to read guides and alt-tab their way though a game.

Personally, ideally, I think there should be a feature that unlocks the info as you play the game. IE: Once you solve a puzzle, your character/account now has the info in game how to solve it, or records what some ingredient does, etc, and you no longer need to go to a guide to look it up.

Just my feels on that.

Yeah having the character learn it in-game be neat. Though these days, the vast majority of gamers get confused for 1 second and then google it. And sadly I'm not joking. It literally takes my friend 1-2 seconds to give up and google it. A good guy, and my friend, but I was over at his place and he would constantly google things. And he is pretty much vast majority of gamers out there.

So most people would still google on how to do things anyway. 

Don't need to buy guides or anything, people just use google. 

Personally, I prefer taking my time and figuring it out for myself. I do google an answer if I get frustrated and annoyed or/and start going in circles non-stop, but that usually takes a while.

This reminds me of my son when we got a new NES/SNES game. His first visit was to get the cheat codes online, before ever playing the game. His "reasoning" was that he wanted to find out what the game was all about, get through it, then "play it for real."

But, different players play games for many different reasons. Achievements is another "innovation" I care nothing for. Talk about a game playing you!

Foncl

Figuring out new games is something I enjoy. I'm generally happy when I'm overwhelmed by a game. If I don't know where I am or how to do this or that, there's so much to do and figure out, where do I start? It's one of the best feelings in a game for me.

I don't mind reading the manual and I really like if there are hidden mechanics that no one knows how it works, so there's stuff to experiment with and try to find out.

Once I feel like I've figured out a game is when the fun usually starts going downhill for me. When I'm accustomed to the game mechanics, I know the best way to do things and the locations in the game feel familiar. It's just not that exciting any more at that point, usually.

Story alone is rarely enough to keep me playing a game. Reading a book or watching a movie is preferable to playing a game only because of the story for me. I need something to figure out or a challenging activity to keep me interested.

AlBQuirky

Foncl said:

Figuring out new games is something I enjoy. I'm generally happy when I'm overwhelmed by a game. If I don't know where I am or how to do this or that, there's so much to do and figure out, where do I start? It's one of the best feelings in a game for me.

I don't mind reading the manual and I really like if there are hidden mechanics that no one knows how it works, so there's stuff to experiment with and try to find out.

Once I feel like I've figured out a game is when the fun usually starts going downhill for me. When I'm accustomed to the game mechanics, I know the best way to do things and the locations in the game feel familiar. It's just not that exciting anymore usually at that point.

Story alone is rarely enough to keep me playing a game. Reading a book or watching a movie is preferable to playing a game only because of the story for me. I need something to figure out or a challenging activity to keep me interested.

That's interesting! I do enjoy "figuring things out", but it needs a balance with "if I do this, that happens", for me.

This may be another symptom of getting "ruined/spoiled" by new games, where success and/or advancement is about 95% from the start, with some exceptions

Really, I think my whole attention span is way off kilter...

Ungood

AlBQuirky said:

Ungood said:

Yup.

The lack of in game info is not.. in my opinion.. a positive thing for games.

The modern trend with tool tips and info provided for you in-game as you play, is an inspired feature that keeps players in the game itself, as opposed to needing to read guides and alt-tab their way though a game.

Personally, ideally, I think there should be a feature that unlocks the info as you play the game. IE: Once you solve a puzzle, your character/account now has the info in game how to solve it, or records what some ingredient does, etc, and you no longer need to go to a guide to look it up.

Just my feels on that.

"Account based" info sounds like "always connected" type DRM. In a single player game, this "innovation" is not a good foot forward, in my opinion.

Take Skyrim as an example. Why does my "brutish warrior" know what my "intelligent mage" found out, especially puzzle-wise?

That kind of sounds like "gaming the game" to me

To be honest, I was not thinking that much with single player games, but even with that, Account Based, is just a way to different between Character Based, and has nothing to do any kind of "always on" type of feature.

As I see it, the Info, is not for your Character, it is for the player, after YOU solved the puzzle, not your "brutish" warrior. The rewards for solving the puzzle would be Character based, IE: EXP, Reputation, Items, titles, fame and the obligatory hot maiden throwing herself into your Brutish Warriors arms for saving the day.

Let me use an Example in a game I played with a Bestiary to better explain this.

The info that I could call up from the Bestiary was Account based, so the amount of times I encountered a specific mob was across all my characters, as well as there were account based rewards and information unlocks, IE: after I killed 1000 bats, I would additional info on their health, armor, movements, strengths and weaknesses, etc, as well as some lore and fluff to go with it, and notes in the Bestiary of my accomplishments.

However, the Title "Bat Killer" and coinciding +10% additional damage to Bats was Character based, on killing 200 bats. So each character that I wanted that extra damage on, I needed to take out and kill 200 bats with.

I loved the idea, and really wish other games adopted this kind of system for more in game things, as long as they made sense thematically, and didn't pull away from the game play.

 

AlBQuirky

Ungood said:

AlBQuirky said:

Ungood said:

Yup.

The lack of in game info is not.. in my opinion.. a positive thing for games.

The modern trend with tool tips and info provided for you in-game as you play, is an inspired feature that keeps players in the game itself, as opposed to needing to read guides and alt-tab their way though a game.

Personally, ideally, I think there should be a feature that unlocks the info as you play the game. IE: Once you solve a puzzle, your character/account now has the info in game how to solve it, or records what some ingredient does, etc, and you no longer need to go to a guide to look it up.

Just my feels on that.

"Account based" info sounds like "always connected" type DRM. In a single player game, this "innovation" is not a good foot forward, in my opinion.

Take Skyrim as an example. Why does my "brutish warrior" know what my "intelligent mage" found out, especially puzzle-wise?

That kind of sounds like "gaming the game" to me

To be honest, I was not thinking that much with single player games, but even with that, Account Based, is just a way to different between Character Based, and has nothing to do any kind of "always on" type of feature.

As I see it, the Info, is not for your Character, it is for the player, after YOU solved the puzzle, not your "brutish" warrior. The rewards for solving the puzzle would be Character based, IE: EXP, Reputation, Items, titles, fame and the obligatory hot maiden throwing herself into your Brutish Warriors arms for saving the day.

Let me use an Example in a game I played with a Bestiary to better explain this.

The info that I could call up from the Bestiary was Account based, so the amount of times I encountered a specific mob was across all my characters, as well as there were account based rewards and information unlocks, IE: after I killed 1000 bats, I would additional info on their health, armor, movements, strengths and weaknesses, etc, as well as some lore and fluff to go with it, and notes in the Bestiary of my accomplishments.

However, the Title "Bat Killer" and coinciding +10% additional damage to Bats was Character based, on killing 200 bats. So each character that I wanted that extra damage on, I needed to take out and kill 200 bats with.

I loved the idea, and really wish other games adopted this kind of system for more in game things, as long as they made sense thematically, and didn't pull away from the game play.

Having thought about this, I think it deserved more than an "insightful" emote

I see it's the difference between how we "roleplay." For some, the player is the character. Then your post makes sense as "the player" has already don something. And that's cool!

For other players, there is a separation between the player and the characters. Just because one character may know/discover something, does not mean all characters have. This is a major complaint of mine about puzzles. They usually test my abilities, not my character's. If I roleplayed my dumb warrior in Skyrim, I'd have never thought to "look in your hand" at that first "puzzle door" in Bleakfalls Barrow. Maybe my warrior can't even read! Think of all the notes/messages those poor couriers delivered that went unread

I do like and appreciate your bestiary example. That makes a great distinction between "account" and "character." My only eyebrow knitting comes from the "insight" awarded to ALL characters on your ac count. They may not get bonus damage for killing 200 on their own, but a brand new character suddenly knows all the strengths and weaknesses of bats, without ever seeing before? (Yea, that's a little silly as bats are quite common )

Roleplaying is hard, especially when a game's designer doesn't see it as the player does. It becomes a "game of compromises", never feeling quite right. I find myself letting a lot of stuff slide "for the sake of the game as designed." I can totally see what you're saying, and have encountered and played the same way.

This is why I desire to play old games, before always online, automatic button press hits and dodges, designs for small time chunks, and achievements became such a cancer

Albatroes

It could be that your interests just changed/'modernized' over the years. Personally, I can't play online games that dont have a real auction house for long because I feel its just archaic (I mean even FF11 had an AH, so I dont really see any reason for games after that one to not have one). Its kind of unfortunate that these things happen. A lot of 'newer games' have things we wish older ones had in terms of QoL but probably lack the 'depth' the older ones had that we used to be able to spend years playing without question.

Palebane

I was just thinking the other day about how when Everquest launched, the actual visible 3d screen was very small; surrounded by a stylized pen-and-paper HUD. It was simplistic and ugly, but it achieved its goal of making you think you were at a tabletop party with all these other folks from around the country. 

Octagon7711

Good story, good combat, and adventure, are a must for me.  I love the old games and will rotate through some of them once or twice a year.  I also love finding new games I can get into.  

AlBQuirky

Palebane said:

I was just thinking the other day about how when Everquest launched, the actual visible 3d screen was very small; surrounded by a stylized pen-and-paper HUD. It was simplistic and ugly, but it achieved its goal of making you think you were at a tabletop party with all these other folks from around the country. 

Ha! I remember that UI! I Googled for a pic and actually found this one form right here on MMORPG.com


This was the old 4:3 ratio, not 16:9 HD ratio, possibly just 640x480, if lucky

Mendel

I like to learn about the game for myself, especially for wargames.  If I make a mistake, I *want* the AI to take advantage of that, and learn from that experience.  Too few games actually will do that, though.

The thing I really hate is people always referring to the 'wiki' when I ask a question.  Too often, the wiki is far, far out of date and completely wrong.  I've seen this with EQ1 and many Paradox games.  If you ask a question about a specific condition in a specific game with a specific set of DLCs, you're lucky to get a quick referral to the wiki, not considering that different DLCs may have changed core functionality of the game.

PS.  Love the old pic of the EQ1 interface.  One of the West Karana guard towers, probably near my favorite rock for pulling lions.

Kyleran

A couple years back I played a DAOC freeshard which was trying to deliver an "authentic" 1.69 old school experience.

I enjoyed it leveling my first character (50) but after working on a 2nd (45)  and 3rd, (42) not so much as the old design decisions really wore on me and I quit after 6 months.

Fast forward to 2019 and I recently joined a new freeshard which "rose from the ashes" and was built with the idea of including more modern conveniences.

Yes folks, they made it "easier" and I like it!

Level appropriate high quality gear regularly drops so no tedious grinding of crafting or salvaging skills to earn gold.  (Which at level 25 I have 276 gold from vendoring loot or drops in combat.

My Skald is over geared at this point and of course, gear never loses durability even purple so no expensive repairs, so my friends and I spend most of our time doing what we love best...killing stuff!

So, what do I spend gold on? Merchants! You buy them in town for 50 gold and can drop it at your camp for 3 minutes in order to vendor all extra loot, freeing players from tedious runs in town to sell and ....keep killing stuff! 

You can even buy another merchant from the camp merchant so no need to invest in advance for spares, which of course stack should you desire to.

Or, one can buy campfires from other players who sell spares in case you aren't getting them by grouping to fight higher level camps.

These are definitely not 1.69 compliant and speed up regeneration of health, endo, and mana while sitting, especially in combat. Not really needed when out of combat unless your class consumes a lot mana.

Maps display where you are on them, and where your friends or group is.  A true God send after 6 months of navigating by landmarks and dead reckoning. 

There are many other perks I won't go into, but let's just say I have no problem joining the ranks of the "filthy casuals."

And we get to kill stuff...like all the time,  did I mention that already, it's pretty great. 

Scorchien

Kyleran said:

A couple years back I played a DAOC freeshard which was trying to deliver an "authentic" 1.69 old school experience.

I enjoyed it leveling my first character (50) but after working on a 2nd (45)  and 3rd, (42) not so much as the old design decisions really wore on me and I quit after 6 months.

Fast forward to 2019 and I recently joined a new freeshard which "rose from the ashes" and was built with the idea of including more modern conveniences.

Yes folks, they made it "easier" and I like it!

Level appropriate high quality gear regularly drops so no tedious grinding of crafting or salvaging skills to earn gold.  (Which at level 25 I have 276 gold from vendoring loot or drops in combat.

My Skald is over geared at this point and of course, gear never loses durability even purple so no expensive repairs, so my friends and I spend most of our time doing what we love best...killing stuff!

So, what do I spend gold on? Merchants! You buy them in town for 50 gold and can drop it at your camp for 3 minutes in order to vendor all extra loot, freeing players from tedious runs in town to sell and ....keep killing stuff! 

You can even buy another merchant from the camp merchant so no need to invest in advance for spares, which of course stack should you desire to.

Or, one can buy campfires from other players who sell spares in case you aren't getting them by grouping to fight higher level camps.

These are definitely not 1.69 compliant and speed up regeneration of health, endo, and mana while sitting, especially in combat. Not really needed when out of combat unless your class consumes a lot mana.

Maps display where you are on them, and where your friends or group is.  A true God send after 6 months of navigating by landmarks and dead reckoning. 

There are many other perks I won't go into, but let's just say I have no problem joining the ranks of the "filthy casuals."

And we get to kill stuff...like all the time,  did I mention that already, it's pretty great. 

Filthy dog humping Mid

blamo2000

I agree to a point.  Some of my favorite games are getting harder and harder to play due to the interface.  Some by not allowing you to tab out and having weird controls I can't remember.  Or allow you to tab out but still have just ridiculous controls.  At one point it seemed like game devs tried to use the whole keyboard for hotkeys and barely put any attention into mouse support.

But, old is relative.  I don't see FO 1 and 2 as old games.  They have perfectly functional UIs.  It would be great if the major mods for both allowed key rebinds, but the UI is far more modern than old.  And tons of games still come out that for some ridiculous reason still don't allow rebinding of keys.  Its infuriating.  And I think both FO1 and 2 bring up the key guide with F1?  

You are playing them with the major mods, right?  I think for 1 it is something called MiB or something.  For FO2 I think its called Fixed.  Both have a lot of new content, but you can skip it all and just apply all the fixes and enhancements they provide.

Amathe

My old games usually end up in my old garage, which looks a lot like the Room of Requirements in Harry Potter. Only you can't find things that end up in there.

Accio old game.

Accio old game.

Accio .... damn it.

Limnic

Scorchien said:

Kyleran said:

A couple years back I played a DAOC freeshard which was trying to deliver an "authentic" 1.69 old school experience.

I enjoyed it leveling my first character (50) but after working on a 2nd (45)  and 3rd, (42) not so much as the old design decisions really wore on me and I quit after 6 months.

Fast forward to 2019 and I recently joined a new freeshard which "rose from the ashes" and was built with the idea of including more modern conveniences.

Yes folks, they made it "easier" and I like it!

Level appropriate high quality gear regularly drops so no tedious grinding of crafting or salvaging skills to earn gold.  (Which at level 25 I have 276 gold from vendoring loot or drops in combat.

My Skald is over geared at this point and of course, gear never loses durability even purple so no expensive repairs, so my friends and I spend most of our time doing what we love best...killing stuff!

So, what do I spend gold on? Merchants! You buy them in town for 50 gold and can drop it at your camp for 3 minutes in order to vendor all extra loot, freeing players from tedious runs in town to sell and ....keep killing stuff! 

You can even buy another merchant from the camp merchant so no need to invest in advance for spares, which of course stack should you desire to.

Or, one can buy campfires from other players who sell spares in case you aren't getting them by grouping to fight higher level camps.

These are definitely not 1.69 compliant and speed up regeneration of health, endo, and mana while sitting, especially in combat. Not really needed when out of combat unless your class consumes a lot mana.

Maps display where you are on them, and where your friends or group is.  A true God send after 6 months of navigating by landmarks and dead reckoning. 

There are many other perks I won't go into, but let's just say I have no problem joining the ranks of the "filthy casuals."

And we get to kill stuff...like all the time,  did I mention that already, it's pretty great. 

Filthy dog humping Mid

Aethaeryn

Torval said:

I recently played through (almost) IWD:EE. Even with the EE fixes and improvements the experience still feels dated compared to games Pillars, Divinity, and other new isometric turn-based games just because the QoL improvements add a lot to the gameplay.

On the other hand while QoL features are nice I think they're sometimes used to prop up weak design. For example, in IWD I can play with diverse parties successfully. To do that in Pillars pretty much requires playing on "My Little Pony Story Mode" which is insulting. It only highlights the weak party and class design I feel hampers the game especially at later stages.

To be fair though in the case of Pillars it's just lazy late game design and not really the fault of the QoL improvements. They just hide behind those somewhat.

I just tried IWD as well and just didn't click.  I wanted that old  bioware game feel without the massive dialogue this time.  It was . . okay.  I fell bad saying that.  Baldur's Gate was amazing at the time and I have started replaying it and having fun.  

As for the OP.  yeah. . it is aweful.  Those games had things that were considered improvements though at the time

NorseGod

Limnic said:

Scorchien said:

Kyleran said:

You should get a special award just for posting that.

AlBQuirky

blamo2000 said:

I agree to a point.  Some of my favorite games are getting harder and harder to play due to the interface.  Some by not allowing you to tab out and having weird controls I can't remember.  Or allow you to tab out but still have just ridiculous controls.  At one point it seemed like game devs tried to use the whole keyboard for hotkeys and barely put any attention into mouse support.

But, old is relative.  I don't see FO 1 and 2 as old games.  They have perfectly functional UIs.  It would be great if the major mods for both allowed key rebinds, but the UI is far more modern than old.  And tons of games still come out that for some ridiculous reason still don't allow rebinding of keys.  Its infuriating.  And I think both FO1 and 2 bring up the key guide with F1?  

You are playing them with the major mods, right?  I think for 1 it is something called MiB or something.  For FO2 I think its called Fixed.  Both have a lot of new content, but you can skip it all and just apply all the fixes and enhancements they provide.

No mods for FO1 or 2. I like to play games in a vanilla state before looking into mods

I finding it hard to play FO 1 & 2 vanilla.

PS: 1997 and 1998 are not "old games" for you?

blamo2000

AlBQuirky said:

blamo2000 said:

I agree to a point.  Some of my favorite games are getting harder and harder to play due to the interface.  Some by not allowing you to tab out and having weird controls I can't remember.  Or allow you to tab out but still have just ridiculous controls.  At one point it seemed like game devs tried to use the whole keyboard for hotkeys and barely put any attention into mouse support.

But, old is relative.  I don't see FO 1 and 2 as old games.  They have perfectly functional UIs.  It would be great if the major mods for both allowed key rebinds, but the UI is far more modern than old.  And tons of games still come out that for some ridiculous reason still don't allow rebinding of keys.  Its infuriating.  And I think both FO1 and 2 bring up the key guide with F1?  

You are playing them with the major mods, right?  I think for 1 it is something called MiB or something.  For FO2 I think its called Fixed.  Both have a lot of new content, but you can skip it all and just apply all the fixes and enhancements they provide.

No mods for FO1 or 2. I like to play games in a vanilla state before looking into mods

I finding it hard to play FO 1 & 2 vanilla.

PS: 1997 and 1998 are not "old games" for you?

No.  I was born in the seventies.  EGA only games are old games to me.  Text only games like Gork are old games to me.  FO 1 and 2 have most of the functionality and UI of modern games.  Half the games I still play now require DOSBox and have non-functional UIs and horrible hotkeys (like moving with arrow keys and enter and backspace to confirm and cancel.  It just sucks).

You are looking at the mods wrong.  Think of it like for console games on the PC.  Like Skyrim or Fallout 3/4/NV.  Would you ever play them with out a UI mod?  Or mods that increase/improve functionality without changing content?  You can do that with the major consolidated FO 1 and 2 mods.  They all have options just to include the bug, functionality and engine improvements without adding new content.  I honestly don't know how people do it without their improvements.  Regarding content, I agree.   But not using really great bug fixes and all the other improvements is like shooting yourself in the foot in my opinion.  

AlBQuirky

blamo2000 said:

AlBQuirky said:

blamo2000 said:

I agree to a point.  Some of my favorite games are getting harder and harder to play due to the interface.  Some by not allowing you to tab out and having weird controls I can't remember.  Or allow you to tab out but still have just ridiculous controls.  At one point it seemed like game devs tried to use the whole keyboard for hotkeys and barely put any attention into mouse support.

But, old is relative.  I don't see FO 1 and 2 as old games.  They have perfectly functional UIs.  It would be great if the major mods for both allowed key rebinds, but the UI is far more modern than old.  And tons of games still come out that for some ridiculous reason still don't allow rebinding of keys.  Its infuriating.  And I think both FO1 and 2 bring up the key guide with F1?  

You are playing them with the major mods, right?  I think for 1 it is something called MiB or something.  For FO2 I think its called Fixed.  Both have a lot of new content, but you can skip it all and just apply all the fixes and enhancements they provide.

No mods for FO1 or 2. I like to play games in a vanilla state before looking into mods

I finding it hard to play FO 1 & 2 vanilla.

PS: 1997 and 1998 are not "old games" for you?

No.  I was born in the seventies.  EGA only games are old games to me.  Text only games like Gork are old games to me.  FO 1 and 2 have most of the functionality and UI of modern games.  Half the games I still play now require DOSBox and have non-functional UIs and horrible hotkeys (like moving with arrow keys and enter and backspace to confirm and cancel.  It just sucks).

You are looking at the mods wrong.  Think of it like for console games on the PC.  Like Skyrim or Fallout 3/4/NV.  Would you ever play them with out a UI mod?  Or mods that increase/improve functionality without changing content?  You can do that with the major consolidated FO 1 and 2 mods.  They all have options just to include the bug, functionality and engine improvements without adding new content.  I honestly don't know how people do it without their improvements.  Regarding content, I agree.   But not using really great bug fixes and all the other improvements is like shooting yourself in the foot in my opinion.  

You are correct that "old" is a relative term

I was born in 1963. I still consider games from the 90's as "old", before the quality if life improvements changed gaming.

As for mods, without playing the vanilla game, ho do I know what mods I want? Also, especially with Skyrim, I know firsthand that it is not a superb game, but a mediocre one, without mods. I want to see how a game was released before changing it, if that makes sense

Now, thanks to Skyrim and subsequent Bethesda titles, my first trip after purchasing their (or most) games is to Nexus mods and finding the "unofficial patch" files. It also helps that I rarely buy games within the first month of release, waiting for them (developers/publishers) to patch it into playability

blamo2000

AlBQuirky said:

You are correct that "old" is a relative term

I was born in 1963. I still consider games from the 90's as "old", before the quality if life improvements changed gaming.

As for mods, without playing the vanilla game, ho do I know what mods I want? Also, especially with Skyrim, I know firsthand that it is not a superb game, but a mediocre one, without mods. I want to see how a game was released before changing it, if that makes sense

Now, thanks to Skyrim and subsequent Bethesda titles, my first trip after purchasing their (or most) games is to Nexus mods and finding the "unofficial patch" files. It also helps that I rarely buy games within the first month of release, waiting for them (developers/publishers) to patch it into playability

Also, I think understanding of computers/coding plays into it.  I could be way off but it seems to me a lot of people older than me that are still into video games have a better understanding of computers and retain more information of how things used to work, why, and how to fix problems.  Where I have issues getting a game running normally without some mod they can fiddle with shit and get it to run on their own.

I remember having to make boot disks to get games to run.  But I have no idea the why and how of it.  It took me a lot of work and fiddling to make a boot disk that got U7 to run, but I have no idea what xms is or does or why what I eventually came up with worked.  The same now.  I have no idea what the major mods do the engine of FO 1 and 2 or why it is so much easier to play when I install them, I just know its way easier with more functionality when I do.

So, from a knowledge/understanding standpoint I may default to looking for easy-mode fixes for problems I have that other people don't see as a problem since they know what to do to get things to work on their own.