The C-Rpg Lives On !!!

The classic genre will never die. We all have access to the classics, and dosbox, also all the 100's of mods. Some new ones too...


1) The Keep On The Borderlands Mod for TOEE
2) Eschalon
3) The Broken Hourglass
4) Jeff Vogel's Avernum & Geneforge series (and others)
5) Chronicles Of Ny
6) Drakensang
7) DragonAge
8) Prelude To Darkness
9) Teudogar and the Alliance with Rome
10) Ashes: Two Worlds Collide
11) Scars of War
12) Age of Decadence

...and if you check the indie games threads here and at the Codex, there are more.

The important thing is to voice your support for the new traditionalists, in their specific forums, all over the general Rpg forums, and especially with your purchase : by credit card, money order, check, cash, etc.

Where there's a will, there's a way. If you let the classic C-Rpg approach die, it will do just that. If you *actively* support it, it will live on. It's a matter of individual volition : you can succumb to apathy and pessimism, but I find that energy and positivism leads to better things.

Really ? We have to wait and see...

Dragon Age and Drakensang are already heavily streamlined... there are even Rumors about a DA Console-Version... and then there remain only Indies and Mods - and AFAIK none of the Indies is a traditional Party-RPG

I thought Chronicles of Ny was dead; we used to cover it back at the Dot and I was really keen on it!!

Well, I applaud the sentiment but I think the actual list is as likely to despress some people as much as reassure them.

Chronicles of Ny is dead, unfortunately. Scar is too unkown for me to say much (beyond some posts at RPGCodex, I mean). Prelude and Teudogar are years old (and Prelude near unplayable with bugs) - I do wish Mittag would say more about Dhargul and its progress.

That said, there are some great games on that list and some good stuff to look forward to.

@Fenris, Avernum, Nethergate, Prelude and The Broken Hourglass are all party-based.

1) TOEE Mod : The Keep On The Borderlands
2) Eschalon
3) The Broken Hourglass
4) Avernum 4 : Rebellion
5) Chronicles Of Ny
6) Drakensang
7) DragonAge
8) Prelude To Darkness
9) Teudogar and the Alliance with Rome
10) Ashes: Two Worlds Collide
11) Scars of War
12) Age of Decadence
13) NWN Mod : Tortured Hearts 2
14) Nethergate : Resurrection
15) Avernum 4
16) Jagged Alliance 3
17) Storms Over Anthon
18) Mount and Blade
19) Wake Of The Comet
20) Divine Divinity 2 (Larian Project)
21) Kings Bounty
22) Golden Land
23) Grimoire
24) Afterfall


The CRPG Lives !!!

Dhruin: what version of Prelude to Darkness did you play? The newest version (1.8, I think) still tends to crash a lot, but is far from unplayable.

David Gaider, the Lead Writer on Dragon Age admitted on the Codex that DA was probably the most hardcore thing they, Bioware, had been doing for a long, long time, ever since the first Baldur's Gate game, perhaps. This bodes well, I think.

On the other hand, I'm getting a bit tired of crpgs that pretend to be 'epic' and prentend to have choice&consequence, only to discover that this choice and consequence really only narrows down to how I say something, and that regardless of what dialogue options I choose, I always end up choosing either a bad, a neutral or a good response - really interesting choices that end up not affecting the game world at all...

I'm also a bit tired of a game, claiming to be 'epic' simply because it is (too) long e.g. have many hours of gameplay in it. Especially Baldur's Gate 2 and some other gamers did this for me. I will rather see a very polished game, where every detail in the game have been cared for that is shorter, say maybe 25-30 hours for the main quest + 25-30 hours for the sidequests.

I'm not that worried that we will get a console version of Dragon Age, it probably will be a PS3 version, I think, not an Xbox 360 version. Shenmue etc. proves that you can make good rpgs on consoles, too. And the user interface seems to be more streamlined when developers also develops for the gaming consoles as well. Mass Effect's user interface seems to be smooth sailing. And this is what I want. I want to be able to play the game without having to refer to a manual - all the time. I don't mind reading the manual when it is needed, but just to play the game out of the boc, it really shouln't be needed. And I want streamlined user interfaces where the player, me, doesn't have to push and press 12-18 keys on my keyboards each time, I want my character(s) to perform an action.

As for games , the crpg department, I'm looking forward to these:

Dragon Age
The Broken Hourglass
Drakensang
Age of Decadence
Jagged Alliance 3

Mr. H said:

Dhruin: what version of Prelude to Darkness did you play? The newest version (1.8, I think) still tends to crash a lot, but is far from unplayable.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be 1.8 but then the download turned out to be 1.7...I really can't remember...I do remember there was a lot of confusion. The link on the site doesn't work anymore, either.

aries100 said:

As for games , the crpg department, I'm looking forward to these:

Dragon Age
The Broken Hourglass
Drakensang
Age of Decadence
Jagged Alliance 3

Click to expand...

Those are potentially 5 *GREAT* CRPG's for the old-school crowd !

But I (and many others) yearn for the days when CRPG's were 100+ hours with all the side quests. It's not just quantitative though, we'd demand quality as well.

This new First-Person-Action-RPG era, where games are often 20-30 hours, is simply a greedy corporate rip off. A game that puny should be 20-30$ at release (but that wouldn't allow the CEO to acquire his 3rd yacht !).

Arpyjee said:

This new First-Person-Action-RPG era, where games are often 20-30 hours, is simply a greedy corporate rip off. A game that puny should be 20-30$ at release (but that wouldn't allow the CEO to acquire his 3rd yacht !).

Click to expand...

I disagree - making movie tie-ins is mostly a money grab (though some kids *love* that stuff), but shorter games with fewer *real* options is more of a market reality.

Games cost loads of money to make, and they have to be very pretty if they are to have mass market appeal. Art and other assets are expensive, and so you end up with a choice between something like Halo - a 6 hour game that had areas 'cut & pasted' to make it 10 hours - or short games in general.

I disagree.

Woefully short games are a blatant ripoff. Eye candy, hype, promotion, and insane CEO salaries eats up their resources, so it leaves us with a puny game of 20 hours.

If you want to support (vote for) the ripoff paradigm, keep purchasing the puny 20 hour FPS-Action Pseudo-Rpg.

It's really just a disposable game. But since it's filled with crap, it's more like a disposable diaper.

Arpyjee said:

16) Jagged Alliance 3

Click to expand...

Now there's a game I'm actually looking forward to.

I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be 1.8 but then the download turned out to be 1.7...I really can't remember...I do remember there was a lot of confusion. The link on the site doesn't work anymore, either.

Click to expand...

Both 1.7 and 1.8 are seperately available in one of the threads in official Prelude forum at the Codex. 1.7 is supposedly the more buggy version though; at one play attempt, I managed to finish the game, or rather the game finished itself as soon as I started a new game. So beware.