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Maschtervoz
Learned
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2015
- Messages
- 106
Well one could be a hipster and argue that a well written RPG implies by definition a certain amount of narrative flexibility in response to player input, since we have to judge its quality according to the fundamental characteristics of the medium, of which the most important is interactivity.
As for actually choosing between the two options, assuming for the sake of the argument that gameplay, systems, area and encounter design, etc are equal, for me it boils down to how you define mediocre to bad writing and how the other game plays outside of narrative sections. First off, are we talking about mediocre story as in Gothic 2, where it's a standard issue pls stop the demonic armies of evil only you can do it kind of shit, but manages to stay in the background well enough, never becomes particularly annoying and you can just ignore the boring crap? Or something along the lines of Biowarian soap opera meets YA fiction style, where every character has the same obnoxious "witty" voice and the C&C is you making decisions about hamfisted social issues? Basically is the story forgettably mediocre-to-bad or insultingly mediocre-to-bad? I can see myself enjoying the former case, but no amount of interactivity can make me sit through the latter.
The railroaded game, I assume that "the rigid and non-interactive characteristic would remain strictly in the narrative dimension" means that, while the plot will progress the same way no matter what you do, there is still space for player freedom in terms of how they approach the set-in-stone story events. Because if the game we're considering has Deus Ex like area and objective design, I might not give much of a shit about how my actions affect the story, as I'm too busy having fun finding all sorts of wacky ways to bypass guards. If I'm reading this wrong and it's a cutscene simulator, then yeah, that's shit design and I'm not touching it.
TLDR, both can be either good or shit depending on circumstances.
As for actually choosing between the two options, assuming for the sake of the argument that gameplay, systems, area and encounter design, etc are equal, for me it boils down to how you define mediocre to bad writing and how the other game plays outside of narrative sections. First off, are we talking about mediocre story as in Gothic 2, where it's a standard issue pls stop the demonic armies of evil only you can do it kind of shit, but manages to stay in the background well enough, never becomes particularly annoying and you can just ignore the boring crap? Or something along the lines of Biowarian soap opera meets YA fiction style, where every character has the same obnoxious "witty" voice and the C&C is you making decisions about hamfisted social issues? Basically is the story forgettably mediocre-to-bad or insultingly mediocre-to-bad? I can see myself enjoying the former case, but no amount of interactivity can make me sit through the latter.
The railroaded game, I assume that "the rigid and non-interactive characteristic would remain strictly in the narrative dimension" means that, while the plot will progress the same way no matter what you do, there is still space for player freedom in terms of how they approach the set-in-stone story events. Because if the game we're considering has Deus Ex like area and objective design, I might not give much of a shit about how my actions affect the story, as I'm too busy having fun finding all sorts of wacky ways to bypass guards. If I'm reading this wrong and it's a cutscene simulator, then yeah, that's shit design and I'm not touching it.
TLDR, both can be either good or shit depending on circumstances.
Animal
Savant
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2015
- Messages
- 384
Well, I rather play Shadowrun Returns than Divinity OS, because I can't stand the retarded dialogue of the second.
I prefer a non linear game, but there's a limit for the retardation, while a well written more linear story can be a pleasurable experience, even if it fails as a "game" and has no replayability whatsoever.
I prefer a non linear game, but there's a limit for the retardation, while a well written more linear story can be a pleasurable experience, even if it fails as a "game" and has no replayability whatsoever.
Karellen
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2012
- Messages
- 327
It's difficult for me to see the appeal of a "C&C-heavy" game with mediocre writing. Narrative choice and consequence is something that takes a lot of time, effort and usually money to accomplish, so when it's actually done, it tends to take a large chunk of the game. So if the writing isn't even good, the result would be that the player spends a lot of time dealing with bland, uninspiring characters, boring quests and tediously wordy lore infodump NPCs - essentially, the game puts emphasis on what is one of its weaker aspects. Choice and consequence is, on the whole, only meaningful if the player actually cares what happens in the story.
On the other hand, there are plenty of good games with linear stories. Railroading does sound bad, but it's worth noting that a game with a fundamentally linear story can still have an excellent game with significant gameplay freedom attached to it, in the form of decent dungeon exploration or a deep, open-ended combat system or whatever. This is particularly so since a linear story can benefit from good pacing and snappy writing, to the effect that the story, while still well written, doesn't need to take up all that much time in the game and the gameplay will remain the main focus, as is the case with many Yasumi Matsuno games.
Ultimately, while I can admire games that attempt to have heavy C&C, it's rarely realised well enough that the C&C could stand on its own. So in practice, I tend to prefer games that have a little bit of well-designed C&C, essentially as a side dish to a largely predetermined narrative, along the lines of Wing Commander, Banner Saga or Tactics Ogre. Honestly I'd count Fallout 1 into this category as well. The choices you do get are just enough to spice things up, and more to the point, even when it occasionally breaks down, it's not that big of a deal since it's not the main point of the game.
On the other hand, there are plenty of good games with linear stories. Railroading does sound bad, but it's worth noting that a game with a fundamentally linear story can still have an excellent game with significant gameplay freedom attached to it, in the form of decent dungeon exploration or a deep, open-ended combat system or whatever. This is particularly so since a linear story can benefit from good pacing and snappy writing, to the effect that the story, while still well written, doesn't need to take up all that much time in the game and the gameplay will remain the main focus, as is the case with many Yasumi Matsuno games.
Ultimately, while I can admire games that attempt to have heavy C&C, it's rarely realised well enough that the C&C could stand on its own. So in practice, I tend to prefer games that have a little bit of well-designed C&C, essentially as a side dish to a largely predetermined narrative, along the lines of Wing Commander, Banner Saga or Tactics Ogre. Honestly I'd count Fallout 1 into this category as well. The choices you do get are just enough to spice things up, and more to the point, even when it occasionally breaks down, it's not that big of a deal since it's not the main point of the game.
Goblino
Savant
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2015
- Messages
- 327
The problem is that the question doesn't work. RPG concepts are still too general, and this forum hasn't been able to agree on a system of categorization. I've noticed most people try to define crpgs as being either more or less of an rpg. The truth is that there is no definitive crpg experience to look for, rather different interpretations of the concept of playing a role. The key to systematically defining rpgs, I believe should be a 4-5 category system based not on specifics like the already established jrpg wrpg arpg combatfag storyfag cncfag, but they should be separated by how the player interacts with the game, what the player is ultimately expecting or expected to do in the game and to what extent do the mechanics provide them the agency to do so. Let me see if I can make this work.
Diablo 2 is sold as an rpg, so rather than scream no, I'll make it a category from 1 - 5 (basically we've already done this by creating the arpg genre and demonizing and disowning it thusly). The ultimate goal of the Diablo 2 experience is to level grind to make a character with a perfect or fun build for destroying waves of enemies to grind for random lewt and use the perfect stats and lewt to grind for better. The majority of Diablo is to be spent blasting trash mobs by the trillions and it was designed to make the player anticipate the next level and what powers it can bring to make this process more efficient or fun. Diablow succeeds greatly by having randomized lewt and eenvironments for a potentially limitless grind, it features varied builds and classes and items and enemies, so it's going to stimulate its fans for shamefully long years to come. What makes Diablo 2 Diablo 2 is that it boils down to a game of grinding to kill things so you can kill things. Let's call that category 2 (cause 2 is a shit number). So, Cat. 2 for now would mean a game designed to grind up and level up and micro-pay your way to more power to kill things. This covers all the mobile "rpgs" and basically every mmo ever ever ever made among a few other undesirables. So now we have the shit category. The rest would be easy after that, you got the bioware category (Cat.3), Cat.5 would be shit like wizardry and M&M where you have combat dungeon crawls with deep mechanics, 4 would be games where the player has some influnce on the game world but mostly is about gratification of becoming very powerful. So I guess 4 would include most third person games like Gothic or TES/ New fallouts, theyre about player character growth but for the sake of enjoying limited rather than unlimited content, and they usually feature something like exploration or gimmicky world interactivity. The next would be like fallout and cnc heavy games where the goal is for the player to explore the choices and see the world react in different ways or see different narrative paths, theoretically this could include something like Stanley Parable or Hammer and Sickle as well. Lastly is hardlined linear jrpgs and linear narratives in general. I doubt this system works as is, I just slapped this together cause I'm bored and fuck you and your weakass thread nigga
Way off topic I know, but this thread was pointless anyway and I can't sleep. Fucking sue me faggot.
Diablo 2 is sold as an rpg, so rather than scream no, I'll make it a category from 1 - 5 (basically we've already done this by creating the arpg genre and demonizing and disowning it thusly). The ultimate goal of the Diablo 2 experience is to level grind to make a character with a perfect or fun build for destroying waves of enemies to grind for random lewt and use the perfect stats and lewt to grind for better. The majority of Diablo is to be spent blasting trash mobs by the trillions and it was designed to make the player anticipate the next level and what powers it can bring to make this process more efficient or fun. Diablow succeeds greatly by having randomized lewt and eenvironments for a potentially limitless grind, it features varied builds and classes and items and enemies, so it's going to stimulate its fans for shamefully long years to come. What makes Diablo 2 Diablo 2 is that it boils down to a game of grinding to kill things so you can kill things. Let's call that category 2 (cause 2 is a shit number). So, Cat. 2 for now would mean a game designed to grind up and level up and micro-pay your way to more power to kill things. This covers all the mobile "rpgs" and basically every mmo ever ever ever made among a few other undesirables. So now we have the shit category. The rest would be easy after that, you got the bioware category (Cat.3), Cat.5 would be shit like wizardry and M&M where you have combat dungeon crawls with deep mechanics, 4 would be games where the player has some influnce on the game world but mostly is about gratification of becoming very powerful. So I guess 4 would include most third person games like Gothic or TES/ New fallouts, theyre about player character growth but for the sake of enjoying limited rather than unlimited content, and they usually feature something like exploration or gimmicky world interactivity. The next would be like fallout and cnc heavy games where the goal is for the player to explore the choices and see the world react in different ways or see different narrative paths, theoretically this could include something like Stanley Parable or Hammer and Sickle as well. Lastly is hardlined linear jrpgs and linear narratives in general. I doubt this system works as is, I just slapped this together cause I'm bored and fuck you and your weakass thread nigga
Way off topic I know, but this thread was pointless anyway and I can't sleep. Fucking sue me faggot.
Apexeon
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2012
- Messages
- 864
Piss head here.
epeli
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2014
- Messages
- 719
It's the first option. Basically the question is, do you want a book or a game?
Xathrodox86
Arbiter
First option all the way. Badly written RPGs with huge worlds are still badly written. See Skyrim and F3.
To a master storyfag such as I am, the choice is obvious. Gimme the linear-but-well-written RPG any day.
C&C or whatever awesomesauce RPG element you can come up with make little sense to me, without a decent story to back it up.
C&C or whatever awesomesauce RPG element you can come up with make little sense to me, without a decent story to back it up.
iLkRehp
Literate
"linear" <----never that 1
so do I like piss or shit? Piss is more linear right?
so do I like piss or shit? Piss is more linear right?
Telengard
Arcane
Do I want a good novel or an 80s Choose Your Own Adventure "book"?
Hmm. Hmmm.
Both of these things seem to be getting in the way of me killing3rd worldia peoples humanoids and taking their stuff.
But if I absolutely must be interrupted all the time in my pillaging in order to read a book, I'd much rather that novel be a good one.
Hmm. Hmmm.
Both of these things seem to be getting in the way of me killing
But if I absolutely must be interrupted all the time in my pillaging in order to read a book, I'd much rather that novel be a good one.
Irenaeus II
Unwanted
Telengard
Arcane
Wrong series, that's Fighting Fantasy. CYOA books defined the genre, and thus the genre takes its name, but they are also a series themselves. A series with such stunning prose as The Lost Jewel of Nabooti's:
Even in elementary school, I thought that was pretty bad.
Even in elementary school, I thought that was pretty bad.
Irenaeus II
Unwanted
Oh.
Sjukob
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2015
- Messages
- 2,060
You can't be serious .
Drax
Arcane
Good work on choosing two options that make you want to kill yourself.
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2013
- Messages
- 4,460
Absolutely serious; who wants to play a game when you're railroaded down a path you don't wish to follow? After the first mission, the player is railroaded into treason; I'm not interested in leaving my job, I like my workmates, game over right there.
If the game designer wants the player out of the agency, then that's on him. Don't shove words into my mouth so that your crap story can progress.
Sjukob
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2015
- Messages
- 2,060
Alright , I see now that you meant more freedom and not open world . I can understand that , though I never felt annoyed by lack of choices since JC's decision are satisfying for me .
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2013
- Messages
- 4,460
Deus Ex isn't really open world, either; it's an fps with limited interactivity and simple locations. You're right, though; my issue with Deus Ex is the railroading, the way the game completely removes you from being part of the story.
Innsmouth Dweller
Novice
The C&C heavy RPG with mediocre writing.
Why? Because games are suppose to be interactive above all else. Linear stories are in movies.
Why? Because games are suppose to be interactive above all else. Linear stories are in movies.
- The well written linear RPG
- The C&C heavy RPG with mediocre writing
Trip
Learned
- Joined
- May 24, 2015
- Messages
- 127
The question kinda mystifies some very important stuff. Like, what is "good writing". I think I've mentioned that before in connection with another topic, but it's both the crux of the question here and it's pretty important to me since I work in the publishing industry where people can barely agree on what's bad writing (which should be so much easier), let alone what's good.
So what's the yardstick here? What's "good"? Tolkien? Eriksson? Martin? LeGuin? Abercrombie? Scott Bakker? Stephen Donaldson? Glen Cook? Goodkind? Brooks? Feist? Or maybe stranger shit, like Mervyn Peake, Gene Wolfe, Jeff Vandermeer, China Mieville, Neil Gaiman, Hal Duncan? Etc., etc. etc. Which part of the writing? Cool situations? Cool sentences? Cool dialogue? Strong handling of theme? Well thought-out conflict?
I can think of a number of ways to handle most of this with a bit less handcrafted writing, to allow for a greater range of C&C. Also, a couple of people writing 800K words in something like a year has been done, and recently, too (80 Days and Sorcery 3 by Inklewriter, as well as a number of interactive fiction works by Choices of Games, averaging 300K words each). And yeah, the writing's actually much better than that of the average CRPG, especially in 80 Days. You can jump up an order of magnitude in interactivity with a bit of clever text-generation + a huge amount of "raw" text to work with. People don't realize that there are certain models to follow that take a lot of the strain off the writing itself, without compromising quality (Francis Christensen's generative rhetoric is my favorite.)
Now, as for C&C via graphical feedback, well... are we even talking about that here? The RPGs that most of us seem to like are pretty stylized graphics-wise, so I don't think that's the issue here. And honestly, different sets of animations for when you want to just stun an enemy with the pommel of your sword as opposed to kill them with the blade is a bit beyond the pale, even if it does incorporate C&C.
So what's the yardstick here? What's "good"? Tolkien? Eriksson? Martin? LeGuin? Abercrombie? Scott Bakker? Stephen Donaldson? Glen Cook? Goodkind? Brooks? Feist? Or maybe stranger shit, like Mervyn Peake, Gene Wolfe, Jeff Vandermeer, China Mieville, Neil Gaiman, Hal Duncan? Etc., etc. etc. Which part of the writing? Cool situations? Cool sentences? Cool dialogue? Strong handling of theme? Well thought-out conflict?
I can think of a number of ways to handle most of this with a bit less handcrafted writing, to allow for a greater range of C&C. Also, a couple of people writing 800K words in something like a year has been done, and recently, too (80 Days and Sorcery 3 by Inklewriter, as well as a number of interactive fiction works by Choices of Games, averaging 300K words each). And yeah, the writing's actually much better than that of the average CRPG, especially in 80 Days. You can jump up an order of magnitude in interactivity with a bit of clever text-generation + a huge amount of "raw" text to work with. People don't realize that there are certain models to follow that take a lot of the strain off the writing itself, without compromising quality (Francis Christensen's generative rhetoric is my favorite.)
Now, as for C&C via graphical feedback, well... are we even talking about that here? The RPGs that most of us seem to like are pretty stylized graphics-wise, so I don't think that's the issue here. And honestly, different sets of animations for when you want to just stun an enemy with the pommel of your sword as opposed to kill them with the blade is a bit beyond the pale, even if it does incorporate C&C.
People in general, would not know if a game is linear or not till they played and replayed the game to find out if their choices meant anything.
The first game is harmless. I really love a game that impress me with its writing, while it's unfortunate it is giving illusion of choices, you are generally unaware of the fact until you reload or replay the game. That's fine. It's alright. At least I'm not constantly bombarded by terrible writing that made me laugh at the story inconsistencies. The second round, I'd probably complain at the illusion of choice but at least the first run is thoroughly enjoyable.
C&C with terrible writing? I'd be bothered constantly by this, screaming and bitching till the end, I'd find the occasional C&C situations where I'm temporarily pleased with the outcome - but once it's over, I don't think I'll look fondly on the whole game experience. Reminds me of the C&C argument people presented in defense of DA:Inquisition. 'Oh if you kill the bandits, slay their lord, they stop spawning.' 'If you help this Lady X instead of Mr Y or Lord Z, it will lead to absence of Y & Z in next scene.'
FASCINATING.
When I ate food on my plate, it disappeared.
When I left the can of coke untouched, it remains filled.
HOW FASCINATING.
Swooping is bad.
The first game is harmless. I really love a game that impress me with its writing, while it's unfortunate it is giving illusion of choices, you are generally unaware of the fact until you reload or replay the game. That's fine. It's alright. At least I'm not constantly bombarded by terrible writing that made me laugh at the story inconsistencies. The second round, I'd probably complain at the illusion of choice but at least the first run is thoroughly enjoyable.
C&C with terrible writing? I'd be bothered constantly by this, screaming and bitching till the end, I'd find the occasional C&C situations where I'm temporarily pleased with the outcome - but once it's over, I don't think I'll look fondly on the whole game experience. Reminds me of the C&C argument people presented in defense of DA:Inquisition. 'Oh if you kill the bandits, slay their lord, they stop spawning.' 'If you help this Lady X instead of Mr Y or Lord Z, it will lead to absence of Y & Z in next scene.'
FASCINATING.
When I ate food on my plate, it disappeared.
When I left the can of coke untouched, it remains filled.
HOW FASCINATING.
Swooping is bad.
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