Things I miss about modern RPGs

To revive this thread a bit:

I miss actual, text-form walkthroughs. I really do.

Instead, we get stupid wikis (which often do little else but summarize what you already know from the in-game descriptions ). Or videos, videos, videos.

Seriously, if I'm stuck in a game, because of some specific riddle/quest/problem, I'm not interested to stop playing for an hour to watch someone shuffle through miles and miles of in-game landscape, in the minimum speed possible. Call it a gameplay video, call it a let's play, but don't fucking call it a walkthrough, it's messing with my google searches!

(I know, I'm stretching the "modern" term here )

Depends on the game. Pillars of Eternity wiki has some of the most detailed walkthroughs I've seen in a while. They have so much info you don't get from the game. And it has them for every quest and side quest afaik.

I kind of miss that in a long text form as well. For a Wiki, it can't be downloaded & read offline in modst cases, and it's like module on module on module on module. Wikis feel like a giant puzzle. Where you'd hjave to jump from piece 1 to piece 2 and so on.

I don't know, it doesn't bother me. I like wiki format and with sufficiently good use of browser tabs, it doesn't feel like a challenge at all to me. Unless the wiki is full of missing pages. Then I get angry

You are arguing about the state of walkthroughs. How about games that envelop you completely, for which you have no need or desire for a walkthrough?

Drithius said:

You are arguing about the state of walkthroughs. How about games that envelop you completely, for which you have no need or desire for a walkthrough?

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Sure, that would be even better. But obscurity is a continuing presence in certain types of games, both in classical as well as modern ones.

For instance, I'd definitely prefer to have games where that secret button can actually be found without spending a whole day checking every wall with a microscope. For instance, some hints that are reasonably implemented in the game environment would often be nice (yet are rarely made available). Acting on such a preference would make me skip most games in some sub-genres.

But that may be going a bit off topic, since this is not a "modern" RPG issue.

Edit: Although, maybe the "secret button" thing is a modern issue, because the increasing details of modern graphics/textures makes searching for stuff like that more difficult. Obscure mechanics/riddles/puzzles are a pretty old and ongoing issue though.

Drithius said:

You are arguing about the state of walkthroughs. How about games that envelop you completely, for which you have no need or desire for a walkthrough?

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Even those games that envelop you needs a walkthrough - what if you get completely stuck and have to abandon a game you spent like 100 hours? That will make me really upset and mad at the same time.

Btw…played an adventure of Vision2 recently from the early 90s…which apparently is also quite bugged. That however I didn't experience because I got stuck at some point.

Guess what: A walkthrough of that one doesn't even exist. So…that was game over for me.

The passion for the genre is gone in most big budget modern RPGs they don't care about SP. It's all about the live service model now, and pushing DLC & micro-transactions.

Kordanor said:

Btw…played an adventure of Vision2 recently from the early…which apparently is also quite bugged. That however I didn't experience because I got stuck at some point.

Guess what: A walkthrough of that one doesn't even exist. So…that was game over for me.

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Long, long ago I had that with LucasArts' Grim Fandango. It was a bug that was never acknowledged.

It was fixed only for the remaster, I think.

Couchpotato said:

The passion for the genre is gone in most big budget modern RPGs they don't care about SP. It's all about the live service model now, and pushing DLC & micro-transactions.

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Yes, everything's becoming MMO-like now, The multiplayer crowd, that becan pestering the forums of offline games so long ago, has finally won.

Underlying, there's also the message that introvert gaming is not profitable. MMO-like playing is rather the message of extroverts, and I read that in the U.S. extrovert beghaviour is encouraged, meanwhile introvert behaviour is ... not considered to be good. My inner cynic adds : "I fear they regard it as an illness there."

I interpret the decline of Adventure games in the U.S. as a sign for that. Remember that everyone was sying that there's a decline of buyers of that genre that made LucasArts stop producing this genre in the first place. Then everyone followed. Then the Age Of Action (AOA) followed, in which we are now. Next is the Age Of Online Action (AOCA).

So, gaming for introvert people is on the decline. Very much. So, this also has a social component, too. No more introverts asking each other about how to solve a certain point within the game, or discussing walk-throughs ... Instead, there's chatter everywhere.

Cacheperl said:

Seriously, if I'm stuck in a game, because of some specific riddle/quest/problem, I'm not interested to stop playing for an hour to watch someone shuffle through miles and miles of in-game landscape, in the minimum speed possible. Call it a gameplay video, call it a let's play, but don't fucking call it a walkthrough, it's messing with my google searches!

(I know, I'm stretching the "modern" term here )

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So products that are now designed for anything but preventing progression still prevent progression. The same products that can be played at highest difficulty without any prior experience in the product.

Second, usually, video makers hunt for views: explanations get their short dedicated videos. Because it means more views.

ChienAboyeur said:

So products that are now designed for anything but preventing progression still prevent progression. The same products that can be played at highest difficulty without any prior experience in the product.

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Would you care to elaborate how that relates to the part of my post you quoted?

Walthrought:
Substitutes to walkthrough is guides, wikis, and forums. If all of them including walkthrough can generate huge unwanted spoilers, with caution it's forums that is the safer.

Manuals:
Substitutes to manuals is in game information, wikis, guides, and forums. With risk of spoils lower for wikis and guides when they are well organized.

Hint's books:
Guides are just spoilers tools for that usage, as was walkthrough. Eventually forums can be a substitute when for hints books having direct solutions, but the risk of spoil is higher. Hints book was designed in parallel to the game, and they was designed to avoid spoils and merge fairly well with a play.

The last hints books I remind was from Spiderweb, but at a point I think he gave up. I remind Myst, it had a sealed envelop, in it only 3 hints, I admit I unsealed it, just for one of the hints. This was knowledge in puzzles and tricks design.

Beside that, it's too old, regrets could as well come from imagination and memory filters along time. So from imagination, better design skills for turn based combats, that's the main regret, probably not real.

I do often mourn the loss of those great old manuals, the ones that looked nice right on the book shelf right next to real books/novels. Not all games had them, but the ones that did them right I would read over and over again. Often they had some great information about the game buried within the details as well.