Why Everything Is Trying To Be An RPG @ Bit-tech

We seem to be alternating between articles that argue either everything or nothing wants to be an RPG - except perhaps RPGs, which I'm pretty sure we've established are trying hard not to be RPGs. Bit-tech is next to step up to the plate and they turn to Sebastian Armonioso from DICE and Erich Schaefer from Runic for more insight. The article addresses the actual question briefly before looking at the potential problems with levelling schemes:

Turning simple, repetitive interactions from being work into a game and making that game enjoyable sounds like the kind of thing that Mary Poppins would suggest to a typing pool, but it's powerful juju nonetheless. Many games have cracked this, from Torchlight to World of Warcraft and the Lineage series. Some would say that such games are mindless, turning players into sallow zombies, but tap into the world of these games and it’s clear that the people who devote such time to them are switched on, driven and ambitious.

We can see why levelling is such an attractive mechanic for developers to put into a game, as it provides a way to tell a story and create a continuous experience, and it's more involving and sophisticated than a score.

The problem, however, is that while the game is tracking your skill level in an official way - e.g. your Paladin has level five heavy weapons skill - as it's still a game, your skills are also building up in the real world. By the time you've bumped your Paladin to level 10, you're going to be better at actually playing the game.

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More information.

Turning simple, repetitive interactions from being work into a game and making that game enjoyable sounds like the kind of thing that Mary Poppins would suggest to a typing pool...


And any fan of actual RPGs - including the "computer" kind - would suggest expecting players to engage in such activity is very poor design/dm'ing.

but it's powerful juju nonetheless. Many games have cracked this, from Torchlight to World of Warcraft and the Lineage series.


See? To make his point he uses an action-RPG (and not even a very good example of that genre) and two massively-multiplayer online games.

He's describing the "grind" that real RPG fans absoultely loathe as the core gameplay mechanic of roleplaying games. Even in Everquest - the online game where most of today's standards and conventions were first set - the game was NOT originally designed to be a grind. If you look at the way the zones and even the dungeons are layed out it's clear that the designers intended people to fight their way through zones, and to raid/explore dungeons and then move on. And that's how people played the game, until there was a bug introduced with goblin shaman pets respawning out of control and going "rogue". These were in teh mid 20s as far as level, but died in a couple hits. Everyone in the game heard about that, because it happened when the people at the leading edge of the pack were level 30ish and the bulk of the playerbase was 20ish. People were going from level 20 to level 30 in 1 day, just by camping those things. And in EQ at that time, people in that level range were lucky to make a level per week via normal play. Teh bug was fixed (after a couple weeks) but it totally changed the way people thought about playing the game. It became clear that sacrificing fun for levelling efficiency was the way to go, because if you didn't (I didn't) everyone else including your friends would leave you so far behind that you wouldn't even be able to do the same things they were doing. And verant, rather than saying 'Hey, wait a minute!" decided to not only embrace the concept of spawn camping and grinding, they totally dedicated their expansions to that style of gameplay.

We can see why levelling is such an attractive mechanic for developers to put into a game, as it provides a way to tell a story and create a continuous experience, and it's more involving and sophisticated than a score.

More nonsense. Leveling is supposed to represent a character's personal growth, not an arbitrary score. There is no concept of "I win because I made level x" in a roleplaying game.

MMOs have destroyed the roleplaying genre, mainly because people like the author of this piece don't even understand what a roleplaying game is, and he's presumably an industry insider. I wish people would just stop making them for a few years. Maybe with a fresh batch of designers and programmers, the genre can be resurrected from the grave.

why?

cos working from "weak" to "godlike" is fun!

Yeah, if I had to name one thing that makes RPG elements worth it to me, it would be:

Constant evolution.

Games that evolve throughout are simply more interesting.

RPGs - the new fashion in gaming ?

You don't get "godlike" , you are only getting strong enough to complete the "level" ..this is if we speak for hack and slash games aka "aRPGs" .

Levelling is worth the trouble if it gives you something unique , for example in Sacred +1 to "concentration" gave you -0.1 regeneration time for a combat art so you needed several hours of gameplay to get a good power boost which was nullified then by the levelled opponents., struggling to keep up isn't fun .

Tragos said:

You don't get "godlike" , you are only getting strong enough to complete the "level" ..this is if we speak for hack and slash games aka "aRPGs" .

Levelling is worth the trouble if it gives you something unique , for example in Sacred +1 to "concentration" gave you -0.1 regeneration time for a combat art so you needed several hours of gameplay to get a good power boost which was nullified then by the levelled opponents., struggling to keep up isn't fun .

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You can see it like that, I don't. You can always go back to the first places you visited and one-shot whatever you find there that used to give you trouble if you want to feel powerful. I think the game should turn difficult as you become more powerful. As it should, remember it's not only your character that is becoming more powerful, you as a player are also becoming better at the game, knowing more of the mechanics, what works and what doesn't, etc.

wolfing said:

You can see it like that, I don't. You can always go back to the first places you visited and one-shot whatever you find there that used to give you trouble if you want to feel powerful. I think the game should turn difficult as you become more powerful. As it should, remember it's not only your character that is becoming more powerful, you as a player are also becoming better at the game, knowing more of the mechanics, what works and what doesn't, etc.

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The idea is to get something unique with levelling, for example i am playing mount & blade (with a mod) , getting 2 points in surgery instantly reduces my loses on battles , it is unique as a skill and i only need to invest few points while my game tactics change ( i can now order everyone to charge ) , 2 points in trainer will allow me to train troops myself instead of getting into battles to level them and so on.
Knowing the mechanics in HnS games means nothing , sure each character built has it's own finesse and fighting style but to going back in Sacred : a melee Seraphim was a big bitch to play while a shred Magician was good and a flying Demon was almost a cheat , so after failure all you had to do was designing a better character not expanding on the non viable one.

*Note that i am not referring to game balance issues , i could bring Nox or Diablo as examples .

Everything's about levelling nowadays.

In the official Drakensang 2 forums someone recently complained about Drakensang 2 being an "oh so boring game", and he actuall called himself to be an "R0xx0r".
All he wanted to do is level to the mximum, beat all bosses, and equip his party with the maximum of weapons and armor of destruction, so to say.

He idn't even follow side-quests. He just appeared to didn't do it. He just mayxed everything out, follwed strictly the main quest, beat everything and then complained "oooo what an boring game !"

If that's what leveling is for, then good night.

So, he's playing RPGs for leveling and not for the story or side-quests. What's wrong with that, we're all different.

CraigCWB said:

More nonsense. Leveling is supposed to represent a character's personal growth, not an arbitrary score. There is no concept of "I win because I made level x" in a roleplaying game.

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And nobody said there is. The point is - leveling can be used as a way to connect different gaming sessions, as a way to make the whole experience meaningful (from the beginning to the end you're working on something, on building your character).