Genre Validity in FPS & aRPG

[Brother None]

And here you are again, claiming that I'm espousing an idea that I'm not espousing.

It's odd that I assume you're espousing ideas that you state, isn't it? I should probably stop doing that, since obviously you never mean what you write. How tiring.

It doesn't. Which is why I'm not advocating it. Nice strawman again, though. (I'll have to start keeping a tally; otherwise this risks getting boring.)

Lucky that I've never advocated change for the sake of change, then, isn't it?

None of that last bit was in direct reply to you. I was talking about my own opinion and the industry line. I thought that was clear, sorry for causing confusion.

No, BN, what I meant is e]that I believe it's better to look at the possibilities we have now and try think of creative new ways to use them, rather than looking back to the classic role-playing games of the 1990's and trying to copy their ways of doing things.

Why should creativity be curtailed by what they did in the 1990's? Copy the ways of the 1990's for as far as they are useful, don't feel restricted to ignore the 90's because of some oblique goal of "moving forward". Things work or don't work, irrespective to where they come from or when they were used.

But then again, neither is "preservation for the sake of preservation." Is that what you're advocating?

No.

*That,* BN, is why it's fundamentally wrong-headed to shoehorn PnP mechanics into computer games. It locks out better ways of solving the same problems, and locks you into a solution that we *know* to be sub-optimal -- because it wasn't designed for the medium it runs on.

That would be true if it were the case that anything used in an other medium is not right for the gaming medium per definition, but that's simply not the case.

Blank copying is wrong, I agree with you there, it's a mistake I think Mass Effect makes when it comes to copying from film-making techniques, ending up with sub-optimal cinematography in the game.

The funny thing, though, is that nobody has ever copied pen and paper blankly. Designers have had to take in account the fact that they were working in a different medium and cRPGs as they originally were arose from that. But they did arise with the idea of bringing an experience from one medium to the other. There's nothing "sub-optimal" about it once you understand what they're trying to accomplish.

In that sense, you could state that action-RPGs and gender-blending as a whole is a transportation of the cRPG genre deeper into the computer medium. But that also means they fall short in emulating a certain experience, which is not necessarily the same as translating the original medium of that experience 1:1. And emulation of an experience for another medium is a fine goal in and of itself, it is also a goal that has been accomplished only by the methods of the mid-90's.

Considering they offer a unique experience that works well for the people who've played them and still play them (Fallout's still being sold quite a lot, in Europe), why curtail the spectrum of experiences offered? cRPGs with the mechanics invented in the mid-90's offer something different. Calling it "inferior" doesn't really work when it's matter of taste, saying it somehow doesn't reach the goals it sets is odd when you consider no one has reached those goals better.

There's a lot of elbow room in here, in fact, and each interpretation, adaptation to the medium and new way of either changing the RPG genre or bringing a new way to reach its original goal of emulating an experience is equally valid in my eyes. What I don't get is the tendency of the industry media at large to tag certain methods as "out-dated", as if their validity were determined by technical specifications rather than by the experience they offer.

I'm unsure if you're saying the same thing - perhaps you're too distracted in attempting to get some kind of "internet win" to properly engage in a sharing of ideas, I don't know - but you do seem to state that something offers an inferior experience by definition if it is born out of limitations. Why?

Or, in other words, people still play chess on the computer and it's still turn-based, because that's the experience people are looking for.

Here's how it makes sense. The product plan that's presented to publishers and/or investors will have a section called "Market Opportunity" where that argument, among others, will be made. Sources will be referenced in support of it, all of which will be based directly or indirectly on surveys.

It's kids. They're asking a bunch of kids what they want. My wife works with kids. They also like the word, "butt." They say it all the time. It cracks them up. They like RT/FPS and the word "butt."

...That's an interesting theory.

 

[txa1265]

It's kids. They're asking a bunch of kids what they want. My wife works with kids. They also like the word, "butt." They say it all the time. It cracks them up. They like RT/FPS and the word "butt."

Are you saying / insinuating that liking real-time combat and/or FPS makes you a kid / or immature adult?

 

[Prime Junta]

@BN, you're right: I did get distracted in an attempt to get an "internet win" to properly engage in a sharing of ideas. That serves no useful purpose, and is a pretty good example of the kind of monkey behavior I was referring to in my first post on this thread. I apologize.

Please allow me to restate the points I've made in this thread; if you like, we can continue discussing any, or none, of them from there on out, with less hostility:

(Point 1) I believe that group identity explains a great deal about the vehemence of genre discussions in computer games -- including this one.

(Point 2) I believe that the gameplay idiom in "classic" cRPG's is poor compared to the gameplay idiom in just about any successful modern game, including many modern games that fail miserably in areas where these "classic" cRPG's succeeded brilliantly (and are, consequently, much weaker games on balance).

(Point 3) I believe (Point 2) is due to the fact that the idiom is fundamentally a conversion of an idiom created for a very different medium (PnP RPG's), as well as technological limitations of that time.

(Point 4) I believe the great strength of the 1990's cRPG idiom was that it was simple enough to create lots of deep content on it.
Corollary 1: I believe this simplicity of implementation is the main enabling factor for the strengths that made Fallout or PS:T classics.
Corollary 2: I believe that technological evolution will make it equally easy to implement lots of deep content on platforms with better gameplay idioms.
Corollary 3: I believe that we will eventually see games with depth comparable to the 1990's classics, but a much more enjoyable gameplay idiom. (Example: The Witcher.)

(Point 5) I believe that adhering to the gameplay idiom of the classic 1990's cRPG's is a bad idea, since it locks out finding better, more creative idioms that the current state of the art permits.

Incidentally, I believe that (Point 2) and (Point 3) constitutes an example of "path dependence." If you're not familiar with the concept, it might be interesting to look it up.

Also incidentally, I believe that only (Point 1) was actually on-topic for this thread.

 

[Squeek]

Are you saying / insinuating that liking real-time combat and/or FPS makes you a kid / or immature adult?

No, I'm not. I'm referring the folks in the target market. I happen to enjoy RT and FPS, myself. But I'm almost fifty, and nobody's surveying fifty-year-olds about their video game preferences.

Brother None is right. It's foolish to ignore customers who are anxious to buy a product.

But who do you blame? Blaming developers like Bethesda for making games like Oblivion is like blaming McDonalds for making fast-food. It's their business. Who's to say what they should or shouldn't make?

Fortunately for all of us, there are still restaurants who serve other kinds of food for those of us who want it. I'm hungry for what, according to my tastes, are better cRPGs.

 

[Brother None]

I apologize.

Please allow me to restate the points I've made in this thread; if you like, we can continue discussing any, or none, of them from there on out, with less hostility:

Excellent. I, too, apologize for any offences. Let us get on with it!

(Point 1) I believe that group identity explains a great deal about the vehemence of genre discussions in computer games -- including this one.

That is true though I still think it's a separate debate. What I, myself, find offensive is not that people have different tastes, I am not insular like say, some RPGCodex or NMA members, who believe that as txa puts it above, different tastes indicate a person is stupid. I find it offensive when people try to apply that exclusivity to my tastes, to indicate that what I like is somehow "out-dated" and no longer viable.

(Point 2) I believe that the gameplay idiom in "classic" cRPG's is poor compared to the gameplay idiom in just about any successful modern game, including many modern games that fail miserably in areas where these "classic" cRPG's succeeded brilliantly (and are, consequently, much weaker games on balance).

(Point 3) I believe (Point 2) is due to the fact that the idiom is fundamentally a conversion of an idiom created for a very different medium (PnP RPG's), as well as technological limitations of that time.

Well, to seperate several things here, the great strengths of cRPGs, both modern and in the 90's, often lie in areas that are not directly related to a lot of its gameplay and combat mechanics, that is storytelling and character writing. And that, indeed, has not really evolved much since the 90's. But it is independent of the mechanics debate...

Are there things 90's RPGs got wrong because they did not appreciate the fundamental differences in the media they were translating across? Yes, you're definitely right there. Two of the most blatant examples are overly boring TB combat and linear storytelling as a replacement of the DM.

But, and this is an important but, I don't think we've been looking for the right answers since then. The flaws in TB combat were there, but the solution - that is removing TB combat and replacing it with RT - was a bit hamfisted and overkill. The proper solution for linear storytelling should not be consequence-free wandering a la Oblivion.

In other words, I'd like to see evolution from the point onwards where it all went wrong (Diablo, Baldur's Gate). In that way I am looking forward and backwards, by simply wanting to reset to a certain point and evolve in another way, trying to retain and evolve certain core mechanics and conventions rather than replace them wholesale.

(Point 4) I believe the great strength of the 1990's cRPG idiom was that it was simple enough to create lots of deep content on it.
Corollary 1: I believe this simplicity of implementation is the main enabling factor for the strengths that made Fallout or PS:T classics.
Corollary 2: I believe that technological evolution will make it equally easy to implement lots of deep content on platforms with better gameplay idioms.

Sure. But technological evolution has little to do with it, because as noted, this development is a separate one.

Corollary 3: I believe that we will eventually see games with depth comparable to the 1990's classics, but much a much more enjoyable gameplay idiom. (Example: The Witcher.)

And here I disagree again, on the basis of "more enjoyable." I would say that more enjoyable doesn't necessarily imply different, and that the new gameplay mechanics popularized by BioWare represent an alternate path, while the main path was abandoned. I see no reason both paths couldn't exist, because different people enjoy different paths, and there isn't a single "more enjoyable" gameplay idiom.

(Point 5) I believe that adhering to the gameplay idiom of the classic 1990's cRPG's is a bad idea, since it locks out finding better, more creative idioms that the current state of the art permits.

And I believe removing idioms of classic 1990's cRPG's by definition is a bad idea, since that locks out those idioms and thus hampers creativity needlessly. As said before, why dump something just for the sake of dumping it?

Incidentally, I believe that (Point 2) and (Point 3) constitutes an example of "path dependence." If you're not familiar with the concept, it might be interesting to look it up.

I am familiar with the idea but as far as I know it happens by itself, not because people want it to. That does not necessarily seem to be the case in the gaming industry's vision of innovation and evolution.

Also incidentally, I believe that only (Point 1) was actually on-topic for this thread.

Sad but true.

But who do you blame? Blaming developers like Bethesda for making games like Oblivion is like blaming McDonalds for making fast-food. It's their business. Who's to say what they should or shouldn't make?

I do not blame Bethesda for making Oblivion. They should do nothing else, it's a good product. It's when they buy up and old franchise and then present their revising of it as a "true interpretation" that they're toeing the line of true and false.

 

[Prime Junta]

That is true though I still think it's a separate debate. What I, myself, find offensive is not that people have different tastes, I am not insular like say, some RPGCodex or NMA members, who believe that as txa puts it above, different tastes indicate a person is stupid. I find it offensive when people try to apply that exclusivity to my tastes, to indicate that what I like is somehow "out-dated" and no longer viable.

That's entirely understandable. Perhaps you sometimes see that intention even when it isn't there?

That said, I think these are two somewhat different, although interrelated topics: (1) where the industry is going and where it should be going, and (2) what you (or I) like.

To keep with the movie analogy, I think Metropolis is one of the greatest films ever made, but I don't think that its idiom -- black-and-white, silent, with intertitles -- is a viable one for the movie industry. OTOH Cloverfield may represent a fresh new idiom in filmmaking. (Haven't seen it yet, so I can only go by hearsay.)

Well, to seperate several things here, the great strengths of cRPGs, both modern and in the 90's, often lie in areas that are not directly related to a lot of its gameplay and combat mechanics, that is storytelling and character writing. And that, indeed, has not really evolved much since the 90's. But it is independent of the mechanics debate...

Precisely. That's the area that hasn't been matched since that "golden age," and that's what I'd like to see in current games. The nice thing is that we *are* seeing it in some current games. The Witcher was just about '90's grade in this respect, and Bioshock had a hefty shot of it, and was much the better game for it. I welcome both developments.

Are there things 90's RPGs got wrong because they did not appreciate the fundamental differences in the media they were translating across? Yes, you're definitely right there. Two of the most blatant examples are overly boring TB combat and linear storytelling as a replacement of the DM.

Damn, we were in agreement all along.

But, and this is an important but, I don't think we've been looking for the right answers since then. The flaws in TB combat were there, but the solution - that is removing TB combat and replacing it with RT - was a bit hamfisted and overkill. The proper solution for linear storytelling should not be consequence-free wandering a la Oblivion.

Absolutely. Why is it only now that we're only seeing tight, enjoyable real-time combat systems that include RPG elements like character development? Why haven't we seen TB combat that doesn't feel like a slog? NetHack's combat wasn't a slog; it was TB, but once you learned the keys you could zip through fights very fluidly. What happened to that?

In other words, I'd like to see evolution from the point onwards where it all went wrong (Diablo, Baldur's Gate). In that way I am looking forward and backwards, by simply wanting to reset to a certain point and evolve in another way, trying to retain and evolve certain core mechanics and conventions rather than replace them wholesale.

OK, this is the point where we finally diverge... or do we? My interpretation is that the '90's idiom hit a wall just about then: gameplay never really improved in it ever since. The move from TB to RTwP was a bad one; the right solution would have been to either invent a better TB mechanic, or a better RT mechanic.

Games like The Witcher and Jade Empire have pretty damn good RT mechanics; even Oblivion has pretty good RT mechanics at its core (I'm talking about the "feel" of the combat and the effect your stats and equipment have on the "feel" and the effects -- not the brain-dead balancing or character development). The Witcher's mechanics even work fine in isometric view.

So what I'm saying is that the mechanics problem has been pretty satisfactorily solved with these real-time games. I'm sure there are other solutions in the TB idiom (and am looking forward to AoD to see how well it works there).

The upshot is that I would like to see more games like The Witcher that take what was so awesome about those '90's games, and put it inside an idiom that incorporates what we've learned since about fun gameplay idioms.

(N.b.: I also feel that "convergence" is not all bad -- for example, I don't particularly enjoy having to learn a new idiom with every game. Being different for the sake of being different isn't very smart.)

Sure. But technological evolution has little to do with it, because as noted, this development is a separate one.

I'm not so sure. The trouble is that since the '90's, most of the effort in making games has gone into the tech -- and the idioms being used are much more technically demanding. For example, the amount of work to model and animate a monster if you're supposed to fight it in real-time 3D is much, much bigger than doing the same monster in turn-based 2D. The tools and libraries are improving, and eventually we will get to the point where it'll be about as easy to do as it was to create a sprite in IE.

And here I disagree again, on the basis of "more enjoyable." I would say that more enjoyable doesn't necessarily imply different, and that the new gameplay mechanics popularized by BioWare represent an alternate path, while the main path was abandoned. I see no reason both paths couldn't exist, because different people enjoy different paths, and there isn't a single "more enjoyable" gameplay idiom.

There are several, certainly, and IMO BioWare went for a long stroll in the wilderness with the RTwP idiom they stuck with so long.

And I believe removing idioms of classic 1990's cRPG's by definition is a bad idea, since that locks out those idioms and thus hampers creativity needlessly. As said before, why dump something just for the sake of dumping it?

That's not why I'd dump it -- I'd dump it because in my view it never really worked that well to start with. If you're advocating a better, more fun, less tedious and less slog-like TB mechanic, I'm all for it. But that would likely be as radical a re-invention of the '90's idiom as The Witcher's. (The RT problem has already been solved IMO, as I said above.)

I am familiar with the idea but as far as I know it happens by itself, not because people want it to. That does not necessarily seem to be the case in the gaming industry's vision of innovation and evolution.

Exactly: it happens by itself, without people wanting to. We see it a lot in gaming -- for example the WSAD controls for FPS's (RFDG would be better, because the little bump on the F key would be centered). And IMO the entire '90's cRPG gameplay idiom and it's descendants in NWN2 etc. are an even more vivid example -- they are as they are because of the way they evolved from PnP RPG's, not because they represent good designs for *computer* games.

 

[skavenhorde]

Traditionally, there seems to be a great deal of hostility directed at two particular genres by hardcore, non-casual role-playing focused gamers, those being the first person shooter and the so-called action rpg. Of the two, many people admit to playing the former without shame, but to come out on an rpg site and state an admiration for Diablo sometimes seems tantamount to admitting to a large collection of kiddie porn. I can understand disliking this type of game or finding it juvenile, but I have never been able to grasp the reason for the anger and contempt that's often shown.

I liked Diablo 2. Passed it many times. Did the Mehpy runs and cow levels. It is what it is, it's a "build the best character with uber loot game."

My problem is not so much people liking these kinds of games, my problem is publishers only see this type of RPG as the only way to make money and so we have a thousand and one Diablo clones or dumbed down RPGs.

Is it the idea that these games unfairly share the rpg label, or in the case of the fps, that it's all about twitch reflexes and mindless violence, or is the dismissal of these genres a reasonable evaluation of their worth? Are fps and arpg games a waste of brain cells and time, and do they actually prevent better games, especially rpgs, from being made as is often argued?

From my point of view no they are not a waste of brain cells or time. Once again my biggest problem with them is that they seem to be the only games that are being made available except for the occasional Witcher or MOTB when the publisher decides to take a chance. Granted hardcore RPG players are not the mainstream but there is a market for us and there is money to be made or CD Projeckt Red for Witcher and Atari for MOTB wouldn't of spent all that money to make the game in the first place.

For those who feel that games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Bioshock merit high praise but an action rpg like Diablo or Titan Quest is mindless killing, I'm curious to know why. Is it an emphasis on story and a greater immersion, or simply a preference for a certain game mechanic?

I don't think either STALKER or Bioshock deserve high praise even though they both were excellent games, but if you compare STALKER and Bioshock to Bloodlines and System Shock 2 then STALKER and Bioshock pale in comparison to those two games. Bloodlines and System Shock are proof that a 1st person point of view RPG game can be done well.

But when a company "pushes technology forward" more often than not they concentrate just on the pretty pictures and not the depth of the game itself. Oblivion is a great example of how a really pretty game is also the most boring game to play. I think that is why you see a lot of Fallout fans freaking out over Fallout 3 because we know from experience that Beth concentrates on hollow, sandbox style, pretty games and Fallout is not that at all.

I'm sorry to interrupt Brother None and PJ's spat, just wanted to throw my 2 cents worth on this subject.

 

[magerette]

And to think I worried that no one would want to talk about this stuff.

Everyone's input is most interesting, and there's no need to feel you're taking anything off-topic in discussing the development of the genre and directions it has/should have /might have taken or may take in the future. I didn't have anything terribly limiting in mind when I thought about this. I'm just grateful it hasn't come to bloodshed.

I think, putting on my Mistress of the Obvious persona, that the answer to my original question, which boils down to "Why the scorn for arpgs or games that use rpg elements in other genres?" seems to have it's roots in both expectations and desire, and attachment to the past. (It's hard to totally denude those words of connotative meaning, but I'm not trying to imply anything negative about the past.)

This is how I understand the arguments so far in their simplest form:

• We expect rpgs to give us a certain playing experience. We value and identify with games that do so, as well as with with those who get the same experience from them.
• We don't like it when games that give us a different playing experience falsely use the rpg label to sell themselves.
• We want new games to expand on the past by providing a fresh take on that experience, but not abandon or distort the qualities which constitute for us the heart of the experience.
• We feel we aren't, for the most part, getting the games we want from developers and publishers , but instead, like the American voter, getting a slick, polished and visually attractive package that says it will provide what we want but is actually unable to do so.

What I'm getting then, from almost everyone is not so much that arpgs or games that borrow elements from rpgs are innately 'evil', but that the proliferation of arpgs seems to have replaced what is really wanted and made it harder to obtain. If the ratio of acceptably satisfying and competent rpgs was higher, the number of clones, offshoots and bastard children would be unimportant. But since this is not the case, they appear to be a threat to an endangered species, if you will, and people leap to the defense.

If this is over-simplified or I've missed the point of anything, please help me out.


(BTW,I tried to write that list without using pronouns, but it's almost impossible. It's all about feelings, perceptions and judgments, and I think that in itself explains something.)

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Platform gaming is another genre altogether, though.

I used to call it "Jump & Run".

It's kids. They're asking a bunch of kids what they want. My wife works with kids. They also like the word, "butt." They say it all the time. It cracks them up. They like RT/FPS and the word "butt."

I like that theory.

Maybe that's how "collecting" became a major point in recent C-RPGs ?


As a sidenote: For someone growing with Blizzard's Action-RPGs as being "standard" and "normal", this person would imho very likely hold the opinion that something like PS:T is not an "real" RPG. Or at least utter5y boring, because it doesn't contain any collecting (and therefore any cool übergear) like the "standards" have. Like what is normal - in his or her opinion.

This is what i meant with Blizzard making/developing some kind of "industry standard": The sheer mass of buyers makes it to some kind of "standard". Everything else gets thrown - or more slowly: grown - out.

What had once been a "standard" becomes a niche, suddenly.


So, sheer sales construct additional, different groups within a certain genre.

 

[JDR13]

@JDR--AFA shooters, yes, I'm mostly talking about the newest tendency to blend rpg elements into them, and how that is also resented by, for want of a better term, purists. Shooters as a separate genre have the same validity as Strat or any other genre but also do often come under fire for being one dimensional.

I don't understand those people who resent them. If you don't like them fine, but don't complain about games that no one is forcing you to play. I don't like sports games(I would rather play real life sports), and I would never buy a sports game, but I certainly don't resent them either.

I personally love most of the RPG\FPS hybrids because quite frankly, I love RPG's and FPS's.

 

[magerette]

I don't understand those people who resent them. If you don't like them fine, but don't complain about games that no one is forcing you to play. I don't like sports games(I would rather play real life sports), and I would never buy a sports game, but I certainly don't resent them either.

I personally love most of the RPG\FPS hybrids because quite frankly, I love RPG's and FPS's.

JDR, that's kind of how I've always felt about action rpgs--I don't think of them as rpgs--I know they aren't rpgs, but when they are done well, I enjoy the rpg aspects they do have. I don't think I would play them at all without those aspects. It seems that's true for most rpg players who go for a good bout of hacknslash from time to time.

The reason I brought all this up is to try to understand why some people really do feel resentment toward arpgs--and as you probably remember, some people got quite hot under the collar when Bioshock got a lot of attention and reviewers and others started pointing out rpg aspects. If all the review sites and fans had just called it a great shooter in a neat setting, I don't think any of those people would have noticed it, or cared. There's no doubt we're going to be seeing more games like it (like possibly Arkane's new game -see what you think: The Crossing )-- it's a very similar marketing angle, so that's why I threw FPS into the brew.
* * *

Addressing the rest of the discussion, the resentment reaction has always baffled me, because I also love rpgs but honestly haven't ever felt that they are made less secure by other kinds of games being popular. This could be because I haven't seen the whole progression of the genre since it's inception, or because I have a different background in gaming, but my view is that competition from other types of games just puts the ball where it always was, in the court of rpg developers and should influence them to make a better game, to keep doing what they do best but to also learn from what works in the games that click with gamers. This doesn't have to mean they prostitute the genre, though of course that can and does happen.

To me the whole issue we're talking about here seems to be skewed anyway, because I think the action rpg market itself is past its prime. While the influence isn't totally dead, it seems to me the next flavor of the month is about to come along, its going to be shooter-oriented and like many other once-hot items, arpgs will be old news...

Right now small low budget studios are really the main ones still cranking out Diablo clones, a lot of them for lower-end PCs in non-prime markets. The most recent big studio AAA arpg titles met with mixed success. Titan Quest had all support pulled because it didn't reach its publisher's sales goals--no second ex-pak, no sequels, no more patches. Hellgate:London did not perform the Diablo resurrection everyone was hoping for---though I think it will be reasonably successful over time. The Dungeon Seige franchise has drilled itself into the ground, and its successor Space Seige is a laughable parody that's only dragging the name further into generic nonentity. I think the action rpg as a standalone sub-genre is a failed experiment.

[Unless you consider Mass Effect as probably the closest thing to a AAA action rpg we've seen lately; haven't played it-(no XBox)--but that's my impression. If so is this bad, or just the inevitable path Bioware has chosen to go to survive, i.e. make a more actiony blend game for the XBox for market share, and produce hopefully a more genuine cRPG with Dragon Age for their traditional PC fanbase. But I digress.]

So anyway looked at from this perspective of the action rpg going down and something else replacing it in the mass market, the threat it may have once posed to true cRPGs to me is now more a fear founded on what is becoming a ghost. The real threat to cRPGs is their own faults, limitations and lacks, which I think Prime J and Brother None have alluded to indirectly in their earlier discussion on the best ways for the genre to evolve.

All this keyboarding is not in vain however. After this discussion, I do better see where some of this stuff is coming from, and it is making more sense to me.

It's a little about feeling betrayed, and a lot about wanting something better, as well as not wanting something you value treated with disrespect, all of which is pretty understandable I think.

 

[dteowner]

Good discussion. I don't quite understand the tendency to dismiss spreadsheet cRPG, though. I've spent thousands of hours of my life enjoying the heck out of games from this reputedly "broken idiom" (such as Wiz8, M&M7). It's not terribly innovative nor terribly creative, but it's still good entertainment.

Seems like in all forms of entertainment (books, film, music, games) I always come back to this same paradigm that innovation has no more intrinsic value than entertainment does. There's no reason to look down on a well-crafted PB&J simply because it's been done a billion times before; there's no reason to glorify anchovies, cottage cheese, and kung pao sauce on pumpernickel bread simply because it's never been done.

 

[Dhruin]

Wow, this popped up out of nowhere. Plenty of good comments already and I agree with the broad thrust: it's a combination of social identity and frustration that action/RPGs have replaced "classic" RPGs, mostly because publishers are chasing larger markets rather than an artistic choice by the game developers.

I very much enjoy both FPS/RPG crossovers (the few that exist), action/adventure RPG hybrids and hack'n'slashers - although the latter can get tedious if not very well executed. If you asked me to name my favourite game last year, Depths of Peril would be in the mix.

 

[skavenhorde]

Good discussion. I don't quite understand the tendency to dismiss spreadsheet cRPG, though. I've spent thousands of hours of my life enjoying the heck out of games from this reputedly "broken idiom" (such as Wiz8, M&M7). It's not terribly innovative nor terribly creative, but it's still good entertainment.

I agree. A great game doesn't have to be "next-gen" or change the whole genre. To keep it interesting, you update the graphics, maybe do something creative with the skills like in Witcher it took potions to a whole new level. That's new and interesting to me. It lets me create different potions depending on my play style. Alchemy and potions are normally an optional skill in many RPGs, in the Witcher it made it essential. Also by making actions change the whole world that was new too. Many games did something similar but none of them have come close to what The Witcher and MOTB have accomplished.

I'm interested to see what the new "Realms of Arkania" will have. If it keeps a lot of the skills that were in the original or not. I don't mind it being RT as long as they keep the depth of the first three and tell a hell of story along the way. It would be nice if they at least kept half of the skills and spells that could be learned but I highly doubt it. I'm expecting the worse and maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised

@Magerette I think you've summed it up nicely why a lot of us get emotional over ARPG or FPR/RPG games. I don't mind them but throw us hardcore RPGers a bone once and awhile and make something we might enjoy too. Sorta like what you said about Mass Effect. I understand Bioware's thinking on making a money maker RPG, to free up a project that isn't projected to rake in tons of money. I doubt we'll see that kind of thinking from Bioware anymore since it's now owned by EA.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I'm interested to see what the new "Realms of Arkania" will have. If it keeps a lot of the skills that were in the original or not.[/
QUOTE]

Just for clarification: two points :

- it isn't realms of Arcania in the sense that Drakensang won't be a sequel of any sorts.

- it's the 4th edition ruleset which is being used, so you won't see too much familiar. Too many things have changed, and imho too few things remained.

 

[magerette]

@skav & alrik; I think there's always more of a problem trying to do a successful remake of an old cRPG or extension of a series that has an attachment of fans with high expectations, than there is making a totally new game, especially one with a world and rules-set as complex as Realms of Arkania (from what I've read, it was a very detailed game--before my gaming days, tho.) That goes right to the idea of expectations and something skavenhorde mentioned in his first post, risk.

I think risk is a two edged sword. If you take a risk on a new approach and it fails, you've lost years of time and lots of money. If you decide not to take a risk, and it fails, as it often does with those who think cranking out a hacknslash or even a cRPG is nothing more than repeating a few unchanging formulas, same thing. I think the diablo clone syndrome is a result of low tolerance for risk in the industry, akin to the sequelitis we are deluged in.

This process of remaking older games also often provokes a reaction of resentment and dismissal, and I think it comes from a similar perspective, so it ties in with the discussion.

I imagine it's a strong imperative in business to want a 'sure thing,' so its understandable that whatever works becomes a template for others to imitate, but it ignores the fact that the ground-breakers and successful risk-takers make their own template. This kind of ties in with another discussion we've been having in various threads--are games a product or an attempt at art. If you're cranking out a product, primarily you want to make the most profitable one you can, the reason for it to exist is more focused on profit than need, and you approach the making of it by trying to find what you can do to make it outsell other products. Usually in the modern world, this means convincing people it's what they want, whether it actually is or not. With a product, the marketing is a big factor in success or failure, profit or loss.

If it's an attempt at art, it starts from a different place, an idea, a vision or concept, that wants to be expressed in certain ways, and you primarily worry about how you're going to translate your vision into reality. Later it's marketed like a product, but frequently it isn't the marketing which determines whether it succeeds or fails, it's how valid or interesting the original concept was and how well it's been translated.

Probably we can get playable games both ways, but I think the ground-breaking, template-creating games will always be the ones that are someone's unique vision first, and a product to be hyped second. With remakes, I think they're a prime example of a developer taking a risk, because the fans of the original have very definite expectations. I believe it can be done successfully, but while it sounds easier to just replicate a winning recipe, in reality it takes a very sure hand from the developer to hit the right balance of old and new.

I think with Fallout3, we're seeing a very strong attempt to minimize risk by using marketing to create a new audience as a safety net, while working on the assumption that either the old fanbase is too numerically weak to matter, or that enough of the old audience will be desperate enough or curious enough to want to buy the game regardless. There's no doubt to me that they're approaching the game as a product and not an attempt at art, so in their case I think everything depends on how successfully they're able to sell their vision, and not on the vision itself. And we're back to why people resent it.

 

[Squeek]

We're quickly reaching a turning point where there's pressure to go in one of two different directions. One has a resemblance to the original P&P games while the other embraces and emphasizes arcade-game action.

The current path provides us with an identity and an opportunity to wander around whatever place we're in, trying to find valuable stuff while overcoming obstacles. It mimics arcade games and befits consoles more than computers.

The other would involve abandoning a lot of action and state-of-the-art graphics for the sake of complex decision making. Its value lies in the intrinsic satisfaction of role-play gaming.

At the heart of this predicament is the fact that computers are nearly perfect tools for both applications. CPUs make arcade games possible, and they're also wonderfully well suited to evaluate the complexities of imaginary worlds with asserted realities.

I don't mind that arcade game RPGs are being made for both platforms right now. But I'm anxious for games that would utilize my PC beyond its ability to generate graphics and sound. I want to play computer role-play games.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I fear that the arcade-way is the one prtefered by the industry, because it reduces risks.

At least if the industry focuses on making a *real lot* of money.

To me it's like having Shakespeare himself and and a version of his plays that translates everything into modern English for inexperienced readers.

Some want to read demanding, complex books, whereas other just "wanna have fun".

It's like the Sun (or the Bild in Germany) vs. the - I don't know - The Guardian, for example (or the Zeit in Germany).

Both are aimed at an totally different readership.

The Bild sells far more; the Zeit on the opposite delivers much more journalistic quality.

In the gaming industry, everything points towards the Sun kind of games, so to say.
High quality - read: demanding - games aren't made that much, because no publisher is going to make the big big big money they all want with them.

I think that high quality games in this sense of newspapers are going to be a niche, and there might be the middle-class (or mezzanine), and of course the "cheap", but really, really big selling games which have with the Sun their equivalent in newspapers.

 

[Brother None]

Let me start by saying you use the term idiom too much, PJ. It does make sense in the context you're using it in, but whenever I see that word I get flashbacks to Monty Python's Holy Grail...
LAUNCELOT:
No, no, sweet Concorde! Stay here! I will send help as soon as I have accomplished a daring and heroic rescue in my own particular...
[sigh]
CONCORDE:
Idiom, sir?
LAUNCELOT:
Idiom!

That's entirely understandable. Perhaps you sometimes see that intention even when it isn't there?

Probably, yes.

That said, I think these are two somewhat different, although interrelated topics: (1) where the industry is going and where it should be going, and (2) what you (or I) like.

Yes and no. The industry is a consumer industry, what "we", as in the consumer, likes is not a separate discussion of where it should be going. What I, particularly, just me, like is indeed not relevant, but it is not like my tastes are all that unique.

Precisely. That's the area that hasn't been matched since that "golden age," and that's what I'd like to see in current games.

That is separate from the mode of delivery, though, except when we discuss trends.

If we're discussing RT/FP RPGs we are usually discussing the popularizing of the genre. BioWare picked up RTwP with Baldur's Gate because it'd sell better, it was the popular decision of the time. Fallout did not because it didn't care or, in any case, didn't want to.

Could a developer be making an RT/FP RPG while not overly concerned with popularizing the game, and thus willing to make a challenging, provocative story with deep dialogues? Sure. But the fact is that stories have been shallower and easier for exactly the same reason combat has become RT, because it sells. The two are related, after all.

Damn, we were in agreement all along.

I suspected as much.

OK, this is the point where we finally diverge... or do we? My interpretation is that the '90's idiom hit a wall just about then: gameplay never really improved in it ever since. The move from TB to RTwP was a bad one; the right solution would have been to either invent a better TB mechanic, or a better RT mechanic.

That's what I was saying, yes. They did hit a wall and chose a solution that meant a divergence, while abandoning rather than re-cobbling the main path.

So what I'm saying is that the mechanics problem has been pretty satisfactorily solved with these real-time games.

No. The problem has been dumped, not solved. Removing a mechanic and replacing it is not solving the flaws of the mechanic, it's choosing another path.

(N.b.: I also feel that "convergence" is not all bad -- for example, I don't particularly enjoy having to learn a new idiom with every game. Being different for the sake of being different isn't very smart.)

Always being the same for the sake of not scaring customers is smart, but it isn't art.

I'm not so sure. The trouble is that since the '90's, most of the effort in making games has gone into the tech -- and the idioms being used are much more technically demanding.

Now you're toeing the line of how much you can use the word idiom...

...that said, the effort in gaming has gone to tech, graphics, for the sake of popularization. But the technological evolution itself has nothing to do with that, going from 2D to 3D doesn't force you to change your priorities from writing to graphics, that's a choice they made separately from technological developments. All tech did was make it possible.

And no, I'm afraid there isn't a magic point where it's all so easy that they'll suddenly focus on better stories. Action movies still have idiotic plots, regardless of how difficult or easy they are to make, and the same will go for many sub-genres of gaming/RPGs, regardless of what happens with graphics.

I'd dump it because in my view it never really worked that well to start with. If you're advocating a better, more fun, less tedious and less slog-like TB mechanic, I'm all for it. But that would likely be as radical a re-invention of the '90's idiom as The Witcher's.

No, it really wouldn't be. It's the small, but vital difference between evolution and revolution. Just one letter, but it means the world. Van Buren was an evolution of Fallout, Bethesda's Fallout 3 is a revolution. The same goes for restructuring TB mechanics or just removing them wholesale, one is an evolution, the other a revolution. Would it be "radical"? Yes, but it'd be radical on the same path, or "idiom" if you really prefer that.

And IMO the entire '90's cRPG gameplay idiom and it's descendants in NWN2 etc. are an even more vivid example -- they are as they are because of the way they evolved from PnP RPG's, not because they represent good designs for *computer* games.

Yes, but I don't think it works that way for the gaming industry, at least not in the main sense of how path dependence works in the main industry. The gaming industry relies rather on self-fulfilling prophecies in supply and demand, a kind of oblique determination of "this is what's good and it's the only thing that's good" that changes from time to time. Path dependence influences it, but it doesn't determine it. What does, I don't know. Probably marketers.

As a sidenote: For someone growing with Blizzard's Action-RPGs as being "standard" and "normal", this person would imho very likely hold the opinion that something like PS:T is not an "real" RPG. Or at least utter5y boring, because it doesn't contain any collecting (and therefore any cool übergear) like the "standards" have. Like what is normal - in his or her opinion.

Like the recent Oblifivication of reviews. "This RPG isn't like Oblivion, so it's not a real RPG"? I've seen that multiple times in MotB and the Witcher reviews. It's idiotic beyond belief, but it's the way it works in a media with a high turnover rate, like gaming media.

I do take offence at redefining expectancies like that. I recognize it's natural, but I do wish we'd get less hung-up on genre labels and simply recognize that "RPG" as an umbrella definition doesn't fit well to set expectancies, and one should separate the design schools of Troika, Bethesda and BioWare, let alone that of Blizzard.

and as you probably remember, some people got quite hot under the collar when Bioshock got a lot of attention and reviewers and others started pointing out rpg aspects. If all the review sites and fans had just called it a great shooter in a neat setting, I don't think any of those people would have noticed it, or cared.

It's so funny (and unfair), because 2K Boston/Irrational consciously avoided marketing it as an RPG, instead calling it a "deep FPS", which is a pretty close description of what it is. That was classy of them, and it's kind of stupid that it got bogged down on the wrong end.

(snip)

+1

@skav & alrik; I think there's always more of a problem trying to do a successful remake of an old cRPG or extension of a series that has an attachment of fans with high expectations, than there is making a totally new game, especially one with a world and rules-set as complex as Realms of Arkania

I personally find it silly that people fail to identify Drakensang as what it is, a new cRPG using the DSA license, and automatically identify it as an RoA sequel. Will the next RPG in the D&D setting be auto-defined as a sequel to Baldur's Gate?

That's the key difference with Fallout 3, something that's closer to a spin-off than to a sequel and is thus being falsely claimed to be something it's not.

Wonder how Drakensang will turn out... I fear for that game.

We're quickly reaching a turning point where there's pressure to go in one of two different directions.

Hmmm? I don't see any turning point coming up. There's a roll for mass consolidation in the gaming industry and while I personally believe its current growth isn't very stable I'm not sure enough of that to make any real predictions...

So why do you think there's a turning point coming up? I think there's a viable market for alternative RPGs for a developing house the size of Troika, but the gaming industry isn't about to recognize that. Why should they?

If you ask me, the "turning point" and decision to go with arcade-game action was made back in '98. Maybe even in '94.

(wow, I hit this forum's character limit of 10000. Neat)

 

[Prime Junta]

@BN: I think the one point where we really differ is this:

I'm really pretty agnostic about what idiom (so sue me) a game uses... *as long as* it's (1) fun and (2) serves the purpose of what the game is "about."

My problem with the 1990's cRPG idiom is that in my opinion it is neither (1) nor (2).

In other words it *failed* in these design objectives.

Modern idioms are *just more fun to play.*

That's why I'm skeptical about any attempt to revive and improve on it, and I'd rather see the effort go into creating better stories expressed in idioms known to be more fun.

(Please feel free to fill in any disclaimers about "just my opinion" etc. as required.)