New to RPG Watch boards, figured I'd talk about my RPG experiences

Hello all… I've been lurking for about a week, and decided to join the forums. This seems like about the best place on the net I've found to talk about RPGs and since I've been playing them since Ultima II, I figured I'd chime in with a few of my own observations. I think you can know a lot about a person from their top games list, so I'll start with a couple.

Single Player RPG
1) Baldur's Gate II

The absolute pinnacle of party-based RPGS.

2) Ultima III

Certianly the most innovative CRPG ever released, unfortunately like Jimmy Hendrix, the style has been copied so many times that the revloutionary aspects of the game are now commonplace. If you played it back in 1984 on your commodore 64, you know. If you missed it go ahead and play it, but the experience won't be the same.

3) Jagged Alliance II

Played and replayed, this decade-old game still dosen't look dated. Despite some serious bugs that were never really fixed, a phenomenal accomplishement sadly overlooked by the masses.

MMORPG - World of Warcraft

Everyone loves to bash the big dog, but despite deeply flawed PVP, this masterpiece is probably not only the best MMO of all time, but the best single-player RPG as well. The scope of a game like Oblivion pales in comparison to even the single player experience of World of Warcraft. Combat is a wonderful combination of twitch skills, strategy, character development, and equipment. UO was obviously more innovative, and Everquest virtually invented the end-game, but most of the WOW-bashers are just trying to be different.

Anyways, nice to be here… looking forward to contributing more. I'm on my first run-through of Wizardry 8. Somehow despite a love of RPG and virtual hero-worship of SirTech, I never played this one. I've got a nice starting party of Warrior, Valkryie, Ranger, Rogue, Alchemist, and Priest. Just got out of the monastary, let the fun begin!

Welcome to the boards !


I agree with 2) and 3)
1) would be Wizardry 8 in my book

Welcome.

Nice list - I'd put Ultima IV is place of III and Fallout or PS:T would be my #1 . Wiz8 is well worth the play, especially with some mods to speed the combat.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
I agree with 2) and 3)
1) would be Wizardry 8 in my book

As I haven't yet completed Wizardry 8 I can't disagree yet, but I think I will eventually. I came to these boards looking for some hidden gems I may have missed, and Wiz 8 definately qualifies. Back in the early 1990's, there were just so many unbelievable games out there that it was easy for a few to fall through the cracks. Despite a deep respect for Currie x2 and Camfield, etc from the JA series and a love of RPGs dating back to Wizard's Crown and PnP, I never picked up WIz8. The somewhat crude graphics stand up almost as well as Jagged Alliance's, and of course the voices and audio are superb. With that said, even with the combat speed booster, I'm finding the combat getting quite tedious here in the first town. The level of difficulty is nice, but the strategic depth of a Baldur's Gate does not seem to be there. A party-based game in first-person has never really been my bag, and was probably the reason I neglected Wiz8 in the first place. Not being to individually move your characters is a big nitpick for me.. For example in the "green room" of the monastary with the spitters I had to choose between closing in on them with my fighters and healing with my priests. I couldn't do both at the same time. My tank dosen't seem to do a lot of tanking, despite being up front-and-center, and there dosen't seem to be a good way to ensure that he is the one sucking up most of the damage. The speed/swing system of combat reminds me of Final Fantasy I-II or Disciples, which in of itsellf isn't such a bad thing (both are fun games), but neither have the depth of positioning tactics that say, Jagged Alliance did. Keep in mind, this is less than 8 hours of gameplay, perhaps I'm missing out on some of the nuances of combat.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
Nice list - I'd put Ultima IV is place of III and Fallout or PS:T would be my #1 . Wiz8 is well worth the play, especially with some mods to speed the combat.

I think at the time, III was better than IV. Remember that this was one of the very first CRPGs to allow you to control an entire party! Ultima IV was the first in the series to flesh out the conversational side of things, but really it was little more than an expansion pack for III, built on the innovative interface and gameplay changes made in that game.

It's sad that the RPG (and almost all non-multiplayer based games) are dead in the age of Bittorrent. Gamers question why the best single-player games come out on the console before being ported over to the PC, and why the RTS and Shooter genres dominate the PC. The answer of course is that we, as gamers have shot ourselves in the foot by stealing from the single-player developers, either driving them out of business, or forcing them to rethink their business model, going with the only really effective copy-protection model found for the PC, online verification. Blizzard was one of the first to recognize this, and sell one copy of Warcraft 3 for every player on Battle.Net. Sadly, the same cannot be said for games such as JA2. SirTech is dead because even though knowledgable gamers will put their game on their top-25 list, few ever really bought the game. Many played it… few bought it. And that's why we get a handful of low-budget RPGs every year, and only one big studio (Black Isle) focuses on them fulltime.

Well, IMO in the last few years there isn't even a Single-Player-Game worth stealing… the last really excellent game was Baldur's Gate 2, and since Throne of Bhaal the whole Genre is going down the gutter.

The RPG genre is a bit barren as of late, and yeah, BG2 was pretty much the last of the large-scale RP adventures. It's a bit ironic as we see the word "epic" tagged on to pretty much every game that comes out and yet very few are epic at all. Though it does follow standard marketing speech in which you tell people something is there even if it isn't, and somehow that makes that element, like "epic-ness" be there by default.
I haven't actually played that many single-player RPGs in recent years. Bloodlines I guess was the last one. Spent a lot of time with NWN persistant worlds, then when those died off I jumped over to WoW with some friends but I'm worn out on that one.
Kind of floating around waiting for some of the indie titles to come out, and dabbling a bit here and there with replays of older games (ie FO2, Arcanum) but not really getting too far.

Welcome
IMMHAHO (in my most honest and humble OPINION) BG 2 is indeed the pinnacle of single player RPGs

I picked up Wiz 8 about 4 years ago, played it for a bit and then my wife had a baby and I put it aside, got a new PC and never re-installed it. I only got as far as Arnika I think, the 1st town after the Monastery but my impression from that experience (and having started over twice) is that Wiz 8 is fantastic.

The combat is awesome, very challenging and entertaining. The classes are varied, flexible and fun. And the character voices are extremely well done.

As soon as I'm done with NWN 2 I'll have to re-install it.

And make sure you get the mod that increases combat movement speed though - can't recall the name at the moment but with all the combat in the game it's nice to have almost-instant movement.

Originally Posted by Relayer
BG 2 is indeed the pinnacle of single player RPGs

Dude, couldn't you have put a big, fat "IMHO" in there somewhere? I always get an extreme urge to vomit when "BG 2 is the best RPG evaaaaahhh" is presented as a stand-alone statement as if it was an absolute, universal truth (which it ain't… ummm… IMHO) .

There, happy?

BG 2 is not as non-linear as Fallout 2.
Or as thought provoking and well written as Planescape.
Or as visually appealing as Oblivion (modded/maxxed).
Or as vast as Morrowind.
Or as replayable (with mods) as NWN 1.

But it did one thing none of these and many other RPGs haven't: It got everything right. IMO.

The graphics, sound, music, writing, characters, pacing, combat, UI - it did everything extremely well and IMO it's the closest to perfection out of all the RPGs I've played.

It had some flaws IMO: I hated Irenicus. And not in a "love to hate" way, I just thought he was boring and disliked the voice actor used. And after Chapter 2 it was a pretty straightforward, linear game. But it didn't matter to ME, the game was so absorbing and felt truly epic.

I just had so much FUN playing from start to finish without any real annoyances. And I did something I rarely do which is play that game ONLY until I was done. What more could you ask for?

Originally Posted by Relayer
There, happy?

ROFL… yes, that looks much better (though I was just teasing as always ).

Relayer, Can you expand on how and why the combat is perfect? I'm not going to disagree, I'd just like to honestly know.

Originally Posted by roqua
Relayer, Can you expand on how and why the combat is perfect? I'm not going to disagree, I'd just like to honestly know.

I'm a little confused. Are you referring to my comments on Wiz 8 or BG 2?

If BG 2: I never actually said it was perfect. I said it was done well, just like every aspect of the game. IMO

Sure, it could have been better (I loved TOEE's combat engine AND even though battles were ridiculously easy, KOTOR's combat engine was great too) but it didn't bother me in any way. There was a lot of combat in the game but I didn't feel it was one endless batttle after another. I think the overall pacing of the game was good - that and the difficulty level was just right. It wasn't a cakewalk but it wasn't so difficult you had to reload constantly in frustration. The mechanics of it worked well too. Flexible and easy to use UI, good control of your group, pause function was useful. Melee and magic seemed balanced. I only played PnP DnD briefly about 20 years ago so not exactly an expert on rules and general game system so can't comment on implementation and so forth.

I guess at no time did any part of BG 2's combat system bother me so I guess in that sense it COULD be called perfect but that's such a strong and final word, hehe.

As for Wiz 8, didn't say perfect either. Was a lot of fun, especially if you like nice long tactical battles - what was a negative was the frequency of the battles and only because of the length of some of them. Still, the movement speed mod helps alleviate this. And like I said, I only got to the first town - maybe after 20 or 30 hours of playing I'd get sick of all those long battles.

(Now I'm really getting the urge to play Wiz 8, lol.)

What I liked about the Infinity Engine combat was the flexibility. You could have it autopause as often or as little as you wished, so combat pace could be essentially personalised to a great degree. While it wasn't exactly turn-based, combat did still play out on the turns and rounds timer (which KOTOR and NWN do as well), which emulated a break in the situation in which you'd decide your actions in PnP. So it wasn't a real time system that was as fast or as slow as your clicking finger but it was a pretty successful hybrid system, I'd have to say.

Thank you guys for the responses (and relayer I was talking about BG2)

Orgok wrote re Wiz8:

…. For example in the "green room" of the monastary with the spitters I had to choose between closing in on them with my fighters and healing with my priests. I couldn't do both at the same time. My tank dosen't seem to do a lot of tanking, despite being up front-and-center, and there dosen't seem to be a good way to ensure that he is the one sucking up most of the damage. The speed/swing system of combat reminds me of Final Fantasy I-II or Disciples, which in of itsellf isn't such a bad thing (both are fun games), but neither have the depth of positioning tactics that say, Jagged Alliance did. Keep in mind, this is less than 8 hours of gameplay, perhaps I'm missing out on some of the nuances of combat.

There is indeed some strategy involved in positioning your party members correctly in the big pie-shaped circle. I also had a hard time getting things right, i.e., my Ranger positioned to use a bow instead of a hand weapon, and the polearm users to the sides where they did the most good. It's finicky and hard sometimes to tell, but there is an underlying "best way" to set up your party that works. Keep experimenting.

Also, the incessant Wiz 8 combat can be too much of a good thing; if you find it getting in the way of enjoyment, there are several factors that can lessen the pain.

First, install the Wizfast utility(under Downloads) which speeds combat animations to something approaching a reasonable rate.

Then, always travel with the X-Ray spell in place and avoid all the angry red dots scattered around the map. Thusly you can get from point A to point B without thirty or forty time consuming battles. Also, after having once cleared an area, when you return, spawns will be somewhat less, so there is hope and purpose to the cleaning out process.

I let the combat turn me off to this game the first time through, and I will always be grateful I was "encouraged" by a few folks on this board to go back to it. One of the most perfect rpgs in an imperfect world…. IMHO

Edit: OOps--just noticed you said you already had Wizfast hooked up. You can ignore that part, Orgok and btw, welcome to the boards.

Originally Posted by Gallifrey
The RPG genre is a bit barren as of late, and yeah, BG2 was pretty much the last of the large-scale RP adventures. It's a bit ironic as we see the word "epic" tagged on to pretty much every game that comes out and yet very few are epic at all. Though it does follow standard marketing speech in which you tell people something is there even if it isn't, and somehow that makes that element, like "epic-ness" be there by default.
I haven't actually played that many single-player RPGs in recent years. Bloodlines I guess was the last one. Spent a lot of time with NWN persistant worlds, then when those died off I jumped over to WoW with some friends but I'm worn out on that one.
Kind of floating around waiting for some of the indie titles to come out, and dabbling a bit here and there with replays of older games (ie FO2, Arcanum) but not really getting too far.

i think that we need is another game industry revolution. you remember old days when the games weren't made just to earn some money? one day casual gamers are going to get bored with rpgs, so big producers won't invest in these kind of games anymore. and that's what we need. then, somebody will make a true gem in order to retain interest of public for rpgs. much like what happened when baldur's gate was published. my bet is that we can expect salvation from ex-staff of troika in other company of theirs.

Originally Posted by Malk
i think that we need is another game industry revolution. you remember old days when the games weren't made just to earn some money? one day casual gamers are going to get bored with rpgs, so big producers won't invest in these kind of games anymore. and that's what we need. then, somebody will make a true gem in order to retain interest of public for rpgs. much like what happened when baldur's gate was published. my bet is that we can expect salvation from ex-staff of troika in other company of theirs.

Well, my suspicion is that we're going to see better and better indie games come along over the next few years. I don't think the more in-depth RPGs will ever dominate the market over the "next gen" action RPGs and such, but the indies have access to much better technology for little expense, so better tools to do a better job come into the picture.
Off the top of my head I can think of three indie RPGs that I'm really looking forward to (Age Of Decadence, Eschalon and Broken Hourglass) that look exceptionally solid.
While an industry revolution is unlikely, better quality indie games are very likely. Which is great, particularly for those of us with low-end computers!

That's why this site is always willing to help and promote the Indie developers; they are the future hope of the genre!!

I sincerely believe that anyone designing games today is still doing it for the love of it, to make a game they would play themselves.

The problem is the people up top. Those responsible for the FINANCING and marketing of games. Ultimately you as a game designer are being paid to do what you're told to do and it doesn't matter how much of your heart you put into it, at the end the finished product represents a company, not you.

Another problem is also that just like the film and TV business, more money is spent on getting modern games made than in the past. Figure in the cost of "name" actors, glossy effects, sound recording, advertising and it all adds up. So to ensure a game sells enough to make that money back and then some, it is made with the mainstream consumer in mind.

In the case of RPGs we get watered down action fare like Oblivion selling to millions of "kiddies" (no offense, kiddies, heh) who are easily swayed by teh hawt graficks and just want to kill stuff.

The video game industry is beyond HUGE now. Back in the 80s and even early 90s it was RELATIVELY small and it was easier to take chances and remain faithful to a "core" audience. In the case of PC RPGs today, I see a trend of watering down games to make them more attractive to what in my opinion is the majority of PC gamers: those who like 1st person shooters and those who play MMORPGs.

Will elaborate on this some more…need to get back to work here, hehe.

I would say a bigger factor in the cost increases is the number of people involved in the projects. The days of half a dozen people working in their garage are largely dead. Modern graphics takes dozens of artists, and that's if you license an engine. The NWN2 team was something like 100 people, right? That's a lot of salaries to cover.