Does the revival of old school CRPGs inhibit devs from evolving the genre further?

Ivanwah said:

Emulators. They've been a thing for 20+ years. I played a lot of Zelda games despite never owning a Nintendo console past SNES.

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Begs the question, if you're using an emulator to play a console game on a PC is it then a PC game

Or do you still have to use what @joxer; refers to as Mushrooms to play them, aka a controller, and it's the controller versus keyboard and/or mouse that differentiates them?

joxer said:

Any good one that won't make my eyes bleed (read not 320x200 res)?

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All of them? Well, I guess not all, but most of them support rendering the game in whatever resolution you want. Depending on a game you might also be able to add new textures and shaders to the game. And for 2D games you can apply a smoothing filter/anti-aliasing and it will look like a modern indie game. I haven't played on a N64 emulator for a while, but I think Project64 is one of the better ones.

lackblogger said:

Begs the question, if you're using an emulator to play a console game on a PC is it then a PC game

Or do you still have to use what @joxer; refers to as Mushrooms to play them, aka a controller, and it's the controller versus keyboard and/or mouse that differentiates them?

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Nobody said it was a PC game. They are designed for controllers so that would generally be preferred way to play them, but depending on a game it can play fine with M+KB. I played a lot of NES and SNES games with a keyboard and it played just fine. For 3D games like Ocarina of Time a controller is preferred but I think there are options to remap your mouse movement into thumb-stick movement so it plays like a PC game, but I haven't tested it. I played with a controller because I own a PC and can, you know, choose whatever I want to use.

Ok, that's got all that sorted, the new guy doesn't have a console but plays console games via his PC but is not necessarily more favourable of console games than PC games.

So to get back on topic, can I ask @Tihskael; a question:

What games that have ever been made prior to the release of Divinity Original Sin would you say are in any way similar to Divinity: Original Sin?

I'm aware that the phrase 'old-school' is a useful marketing catch-phrase short-hand that developers use to hint to their player base what general market they're aiming for, but in reality, what games, if any, does Divinity Original Sin specifically 'do anything even remotely similar to'?

What aspects of it do you consider 'uninventive'?

Unless we're just going to use this thread to mention random games we like and what their USP is but exclude some games because they marketed themselves with a phrase that uses the term 'old school'?

For the purposes of this thread, what are you classing as innovation @Tihskael; ?

Ivanwah said:

Emulators. They've been a thing for 20+ years. I played a lot of Zelda games despite never owning a Nintendo console past SNES.

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You can even play the new Zelda game using the emulators.

lackblogger said:

What games that have ever been made prior to the release of Divinity Original Sin would you say are in any way similar to Divinity: Original Sin?

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The new guy thinks that Divinity OS draws inspiration from games like NVN, DA:O and Ultima VII (Swen mentioned it once, old guy should check out his interviews)

lackblogger said:

What aspects of it do you consider 'uninventive'?

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The new guy doesn't think of these games as "uninventive" per se, but they don't necessarily break new ground either. It's like copying off a 20 year old building, but hey it has a fancier bathroom, must be inventive. Tweaks to the system and coming with features like strongholds, ship battles, managing a kingdom, might make the experience richer, but inventive? The new guy doesn't think so.

lackblogger said:

For the purposes of this thread, what are you classing as innovation

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A little game called Demon's Souls would be the new guy's favorite example. If you haven't played it here you go. A spiritual successor to a relatively unknown game series (console alert!) King's Field. So Sony gave FromSoft (the dev) a call and said hey! this Oblivion game is doing really well, can you make an exclusive like it for us? This guy named Hidetaka Miyazaki thought maybe I can't go toe to toe with Oblivion, but hey let me do my own thing. So he started working on a project that had already been discarded by directors before him, so he thought what the hell, how worse can it get. And so after 3 years he came up with Demon's Souls. How was Demon's Souls inventive? The game doesn't hold your hand at all, just throws you into a vague tutorial section. You don't learn through hints or tips, you learn through playing the game. All those numbers on your inventory screen? Good luck figuring them out. How do all these mechanics work? Play the game and find out? What's the story about? Pay attention to the game world, talk to NPC's and read item description. Still can't make sense? Join the dots. Still can't make sense? Watch Vaati. Chances are still you won't make sense of it all because maybe it is too vague, only slightly implied and you can never be too sure, but that's the charm of it all. Tried to play the wrong level and got your ass kicked? Will the game tell you that? No. Now coming to combat. Each weapon is unique, has different damage type, different move set, different speed and so on. Everything from A to Z is incorporated in the lore, from the bosses, the enemies to the dying and re-spawning mechanic. Has a single currency system which is used to upgrade your weapons, armor, buy new stuff OR use as experience points. Did you die? Oh sorry now you've lost all your currency and have to pick it up from where you lost it, and if you die again, its permanently lost. Too bad. The game is challenging and needs you to be very methodical in your approach, but hey if its too tough, summon a coop partner and defeat the evil together. Getting cocky? Get invaded and have fun. Each level is meticulously crafted with extremely interesting lore and environments. This game was not made for everyone, or to attract a ton of players. The dev knew it for what it was and had belief in their craft, even though the difficult nature of the game would have scared players away. Sony's president thought the game was "an unbelievably bad game", an unbelievably bad game which single-handedly spawned an entirely new sub genre, shipped more than a million units and gained critical acclaim. Now that's inventive my friend. Everything doesn't need to be Demon's Souls. But devs surely can take a leaf from Miyazaki's book which is being creative, doing your own thing and still being able to inspire people. That's really it. The Tim Cains, the Richard Garriotts, the Ken Levines certainly did so.

Tihskael said:

A little game called Demon's Souls would be the new guy's favorite example. If you haven't played it here you go. A spiritual successor to a relatively unknown game series (console alert!) King's Field. So Sony gave FromSoft (the dev) a call and said hey! this Oblivion game is doing really well, can you make an exclusive like it for us? This guy named Hidetaka Miyazaki thought maybe I can't go toe to toe with Oblivion, but hey let me do my own thing. So he started working on a project that had already been discarded by directors before him, so he thought what the hell, how worse can it get. And so after 3 years he came up with Demon's Souls. How was Demon's Souls inventive? The game doesn't hold your hand at all, just throws you into a vague tutorial section. You don't learn through hints or tips, you learn through playing the game. All those numbers on your inventory screen? Good luck figuring them out. How do all these mechanics work? Play the game and find out? What's the story about? Pay attention to the game world, talk to NPC's and read item description. Still can't make sense? Join the dots. Still can't make sense? Watch Vaati. Chances are still you won't make sense of it all because maybe it is too vague, only slightly implied and you can never be too sure, but that's the charm of it all. Tried to play the wrong level and got your ass kicked? Will the game tell you that? No. Now coming to combat. Each weapon is unique, has different damage type, different move set, different speed and so on. Everything from A to Z is incorporated in the lore, from the bosses, the enemies to the dying and re-spawning mechanic. Has a single currency system which is used to upgrade your weapons, armor, buy new stuff OR use as experience points. Did you die? Oh sorry now you've lost all your currency and have to pick it up from where you lost it, and if you die again, its permanently lost. Too bad. The game is challenging and needs you to be very methodical in your approach, but hey if its too tough, summon a coop partner and defeat the evil together. Getting cocky? Get invaded and have fun. Each level is meticulously crafted with extremely interesting lore and environments. This game was not made for everyone, or to attract a ton of players. The dev knew it for what it was and had belief in their craft, even though the difficult nature of the game would have scared players away. Sony's president thought the game was "an unbelievably bad game", an unbelievably bad game which single-handedly spawned an entirely new sub genre, shipped more than a million units and gained critical acclaim. Now that's inventive my friend. Everything doesn't need to be Demon's Souls. But devs surely can take a leaf from Miyazaki's book which is being creative, doing your own thing and still being able to inspire people. That's really it. The Tim Cains, the Richard Garriotts, the Ken Levines certainly did so.

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hey new guy, I refuse to read that wall of text, paragraphs please

Too tired. Please bear with me.

@joxer;

Tihskael said:

The new guy thinks that Divinity OS draws inspiration from games like NVN, DA:O and Ultima VII

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Everything draws inspiration from everything. Utterly pointless statement. As further evidenced by your wall of text (at the time of replying) which starts of by saying Demon Souls takes inspiration from XYZ yadda yadda yadda.

So lets take this a step more… accurate?

I do not think NWN and D: OS are in the slightest bit similar. I can't really think of any ways in which the two are comparable. Please provide a short list of actual things or mechanics that are in both games that are what represents to you a lack of evolution.

lackblogger said:

@joxer;

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Eh?
I have RL stuff to do so can't get involved more currently.

A short suggestion though, if I didn't miss something, noone mentioned hybrids.
And general praise that went to virtual novel + point and click + RPG = Disco Elysium.
Isn't that an evolution too?

lackblogger said:

Everything draws inspiration from everything. Utterly pointless statement. As further evidenced by your wall of text (at the time of replying) which starts of by saying Demon Souls takes inspiration from XYZ yadda yadda yadda.

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Demons Souls is a "spiritual successor" to King's Field only in the sense that it draws inspiration from its tone and how it handles NPCs. Rest part of yadda yadda is how it find its own identity unlike say Pillars which owes it mostly to Infinity engine games

lackblogger said:

I do not think NWN and D: OS are in the slightest bit similar. I can't really think of any ways in which the two are comparable. Please provide a short list of actual things or mechanics that are in both games that are what represents to you a lack of evolution.

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"Last year, the developers behind the Divinity RPG series took to crowdfunding sites with promises of a truly old-school role-playing game. They described a project along the lines of Ultima, Baldur’s Gate, and Neverwinter Nights, the 2D isometric-camera epics that defined a golden age of digital swords and sorcery on the PC."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstec...d-mix-of-old-and-new-school-rpg-design/?amp=1
Yeah let me get Swen and Bioware guys on phone to sit down and explain to you how exactly one game inspired the other and mail you a "list". Do your own research.

Tihskael said:

"Last year, the developers behind the Divinity RPG series took to crowdfunding sites with promises of a truly old-school role-playing game. They described a project along the lines of Ultima, Baldur’s Gate, and Neverwinter Nights, the 2D isometric-camera epics that defined a golden age of digital swords and sorcery on the PC."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstec...d-mix-of-old-and-new-school-rpg-design/?amp=1
Yeah let me get Swen and Bioware guys on phone to sit down and explain to you how exactly one game inspired the other and mail you a "list". Do your own research.

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So what you're saying is you haven't played either of them?

joxer said:

Eh?
I have RL stuff to do so can't get involved more currently.

A short suggestion though, if I didn't miss something, noone mentioned hybrids.
And general praise that went to virtual novel + point and click + RPG = Disco Elysium.
Isn't that an evolution too?

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That is what I came here to write but you beat me. Disco Elysium is a prime example of some innovative stuff.

I also thought Vampyr, Numeria, Tyranny, Tower of Time, and some other games showed some variations and twists.

Personally I don't think the revival inhibits creative innovation. It depends more on the development team/company and a mix of what they want to do and their resources combined with risk. Risk is the only area I see it having some play but I don't think its enough to really prevent innovation.

You guys are hilarious. This is the one forum that I go to simply to read the back-and-forth between Users.

So little of it makes any sense! But it's like piecing together a puzzle. It's awesome.

It's gaming. The term "evolving" gives anything in its space more credit than it deserves. Like any media, it tries to do something new so as to maintain and attract customers. Else we would have a world of Jeff Vogels and Saw sequels (w/ dwindling marketshare).

It isn't evolution so much as keeping things fresh for people who have played the 50 previous iterations on the same concept.

Yes, I am a console guy, why would I play CRPGs? We really don't know how to make lists, sorry.

"Does the revival of old school CRPGs inhibit devs from evolving the genre further?"

I don't think so, simply because there are so many devs. They will all have their own mixes of new vs. tried & true. The big money games will tend toward the latter but the B level games will keep innovating and some of that will trickle up to the AAA level.

I do think innovation is slowing down a lot, though. I guess that's to be expected because the technology isn't advancing nearly as fast as it was in the 90's. Back then, even a high-end computer was pretty obsolete just four years later. It's a lot easier to innovate when technology is making so many more things possible. Now they've actually got to think up new ideas when the technology hasn't even doubled our speeds in the last, what? Ten years?