Question for the long time cRPG'ers

[M_I_C_K_E_Y_M_O_U_S_E]

Anyone care to explain why it's a bad thing for games like BG2 and FO3 to be accessible, or simplified as the codex puts it? This is not a trolling message, this is not a joke. It as an honest question. Seems to me that the whole point of the industry is to entertain, and that games like BG2 or FO3 are more successful at entertainment (not better games, just more popular) than games like planescape, AoD when it's complete, and FO. BGII has nothing on FO or PST regarding writing, c&c and originality, but it did have these things, a sense of non-linearity and was relatively mainstream compared to PST.

FO3 was absolute shit as a sequel, and was sort of a BGII junior in the sense of what the Codex seems to want from cRPG games, but it's better than Oblivion and probably more successful, not sure though but the beth forums had something like 4 or 5 new posts per minute 2 weeks after the game was out in the FO3 section. Pretty sure that much popularity is a good thing to put on a CV.

 

[Serus]

Britney Spears was (is) also very popular. So what ?
It's not bad if the game is accessible (on the contrary) but when the quality is low. There are too many shitty games sold as hits (you heard about Oblivion, no ?), codexers dont like those.
Personally i like BG 2.

 

[PlanHex]

Seems to me that the whole point of the industry is to entertain, and that games like BG2 or FO3 are more successful at entertainment (not better games, just more popular)

Seems to me Harry Potter books are pretty entertaining, so let's only make those kind of books. Screw Dostojevskij and Shakespeare.

Pretty sure that much popularity is a good thing to put on a CV.

Yes, let's all support the poor megacorporations in their quest for popularity as the ultimate benchmark of quality.

Also, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH0N-kgMUbA

 

[DraQ]

Because 'accessible' tends to mean 'simplified', which in turn tends to mean 'dumbed down'.

Britney Spears was (is) also very popular. So what ?

Seems to me Harry Potter books are pretty entertaining, so let's only make those kind of books. Screw Dostojevskij and Shakespeare.

This.

Personally i like BG 2.

It's a decent game - basically what a good cRPG without much aspirations should look like.
Not a work of art, but good craftsmanship.

 

[Texas Red]

It's not that they're mainstream, it's that they're crappy as a whole. Level scaling of Oblivion or lack of town in FOblivion 3 have nothing to do with dumbing down, just poor design choices that negatively affect everyone.

 

[1eyedking]

It is bad because it usually drags the whole industry down, particularly since developing videogames is a budget-based venture.

Hollywood used to produce good movies (read: Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, etc.), but once the George Lucas, Spielbergs and Coppolas began sprawling around, the whole business started focusing on single big hits rather than gambling with good scripts and mid-budgets, which is what's happening to videogames as of now.

 

[Disconnected]

Both BG2 and PS:T were far more accessible than FO3, and far more complex (even using absurdly counter-intuitive mechanics that the player had to understand thoroughly). They were, because even counting the right-click Wheel of User Hostility in PS:T, their interfaces were far better put together.

The big difference between FO3/BG2 and PS:T is that where the former gets your attention by, metaphorically, pointing a gun at your head, PS:T tries to appeal to your curiosity/sense of wonder.

 

[Gragt]

Hollywood used to produce good movies (read: Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, etc.), but once the George Lucas, Spielbergs and Coppolas began sprawling around, the whole business started focusing on single big hits rather than gambling with good scripts and mid-budgets, which is what's happening to videogames as of now.

Welles had to fight studio executives to get Citizen Kane done the way he wanted, Casablanca is overrated though still a good movie (and I'm very fond of it). As for Lucas, despite his late filmic drivel, he still made the excellent THX-1138 (one could argue if he knew what he was doing or not but the movie is great). Spielberg, the less said the better, but Coppola is in a different league, he did some crap, sure, but there is also Apocalypse Now, the first two Godfather movies or The Conversation. He was part of a group of directors, including other people like Scorcese, who made self-conscious art movies.

 

[Helton]

Really there is nothing wrong with them or what they're doing only that, as a niche, we are not being served.

By calling your game a cRPG you get the attention of cRPG gamers. But your game is not what we want and not what we have traditionally associated with the cRPG genre and so we're put off. We feel mislead and cheated. We want cRPGs, we're bitter because we don't get a large number of them, and you told us you were making one -- but you weren't. Not by our standards anyways.

Conflict and resentment on an appropriate scale are the results.

The problem isn't that the Fallout 3s are being made, but that it often seems that they are all that's being made, at the expense of the games we want to pay for.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Just what is so inaccessible about PS:T?

It has one of the simplest character creation systems ever seen, it has the most basic version of 2ed mechanics, there is an in-game tutorial at the very beginning, and has a cleaner and less cluttered interface than other IE games.

Its learning curve does not go beyond two minutes.

Accessibility is very much a good thing, but where do you get the idea that PS:T is not?

If by accessibility, you mean presentation, then let me remind you that PS:T was a mainstream game. It had a sizable budget that was spent on a good music composer, fancy graphics, high quality sound effects, and voice acting. That's about as good a presentation you get, especially when this is a AAA game.

 

[M_I_C_K_E_Y_M_O_U_S_E]

I mean most people prefer guns and explosions over walls of text.

 

[Lesifoere]

I mean most people are subliterate mouth-breathing mongrels.

Fix't.

 

[deranged]

Anyone care to explain why it's a bad thing for games like BG2 and FO3 to be accessible, or simplified as the codex puts it?

You are so wrong there. BG2 can hardly be labeled as accessible. It was difficult, big and had obscure for the casual gamer rules. Last thing I remember it was ranked in place 5th in the Top 10 RPgs of all time.

For Fallout3 I cannot comment. I couldn't get into it.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

The OP does a few things that always ticks me off with these kinds of posts. The main one immediately makes me want to kill.

"What about the company profits! The company has to make a profit! Look how well it sold!"

I HATE this shit. I would love to know when gamers and gaming journalists started using this rubbish, if someone can point out the first instance I would love to know. We are the customers, and journalists used to be the critics, serving the customers. Neither gave a flying fuck about profit margins and the company. Devs/publishers are (were?) there to serve and will get money for doing so.

Too many kids are parroting the company line these days "But the profits!!!" Shut the fuck up and stop defending the company. For journalists this is already too late, like car mags they have become the bitches of the industry. Totally turned upside down. Developer turns out a half finished, dumbed down piece of shit and the journo's and gaming kids leap onto their horses and start circling the developer, defending them and constantly screaming "The company needs the profits!!! They couldn't finish it because it was too hard! Patches will come in the mail! Profits!!!"

If someone goes and gets a whore, they don't want to listen to the whores problems. And if the whore refused to do it in, say, doggy style, instead whining and saying that instead they want to put on a strapon and fuck the customer up the butt...well, normally I would imagine the customer would tell them to fuck off and find someone else.

The kids these days would probably grease their own rear and bend over just in case the whore got angry with them.

As for the rest of the post, it has already been answered.

 

[Black]

long time crpgers?
You won't find em here.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Just what is so inaccessible about PS:T?

You have to *gasp* READ! :shock:

 

[MetalCraze]

In fact you will spend most time in a game reading.

Also dumbing down is bad too. Depending on a scale of it. I can't simply stand hand-holding - which basically means that game cries at me "you're a dumb idiot who can't understand what to do next on your own despite it being obvious". Handholding like quest markers sucks. It totally kills exploration. Then again if there is nothing to explore like in Beth games... But quest markers in Mass Effects? For fuck's sake, ME's levels are linear as a stick - why would you need quest markers in a linear corridor?
But dumbing down can be even worse. Dumbing down nearly always means simplifying. And by simplifying I mean "less possibilities/less content/more linearity" Just compare Deus Ex to Deus Ex's spin-off Invisible War.
Or System Shock 2 to Bioshock.
Or RPGs with dialogue skills to TW with its 100% dialogue/bang chicks skill check success.
Or RPGs with non-combat skills to TW's git moar hp and spell powa and kill those monstirs.
Or RPGs with good combat to TW's click now to make combo - here we will help you by showing when you must click yay

 

[The Rambling Sage]

Anyone care to explain why it's a bad thing for games like BG2 and FO3 to be accessible, or simplified as the codex puts it? This is not a trolling message, this is not a joke. It as an honest question. Seems to me that the whole point of the industry is to entertain, and that games like BG2 or FO3 are more successful at entertainment (not better games, just more popular) than games like planescape, AoD when it's complete, and FO. BGII has nothing on FO or PST regarding writing, c&c and originality, but it did have these things, a sense of non-linearity and was relatively mainstream compared to PST.

FO3 was absolute shit as a sequel, and was sort of a BGII junior in the sense of what the Codex seems to want from cRPG games, but it's better than Oblivion and probably more successful, not sure though but the beth forums had something like 4 or 5 new posts per minute 2 weeks after the game was out in the FO3 section. Pretty sure that much popularity is a good thing to put on a CV.

I would say that the problem is not games being accesible or entertaining for a certaing demographic, but that almost no one is making games for those who do not belong to that one group of people. In music, since someone mentioned Britney Spears, you may not like this crap, but you also get all this other crap to try. In film it is worse than music, but if you do not like the summer blockbusters and endless remakes there is a small, slow, but constant stream of experimental and diferent things to try. Meanwhile, in videogames, if you do not like the way things are going you are fucked, dead, buried, and forgotten by all but a few indies and two crazy russian guys.

 

[1eyedking]

Or RPGs with dialogue skills to TW with its 100% dialogue/bang chicks skill check success.

This is a question of preference. The Codex's been over this at least 10 times: dialogue checks are both good and bad, since it respectively encourages character planning and dumbs down dialogue decision by either tagging the juicier choice or making it obvious (as in the long, eloquent answer).

 

[MetalCraze]

With a good design all dialogue decisions can be juicy.
Then again - at least there was a decision you could make in those RPGs during such dialogues. And characters felt more varied which is good for replayability. The game that deserves a second (or a third) playthrough that won't be mostly the same and you won't be able to see all content like in modern games - is a worthy game in my book. I want to (re)play something while waiting for that next good single rpg per 2 years.

 

[1eyedking]

With a good design all dialogue decisions can be juicy.
Then again - at least there was a decision you could make in those RPGs during such dialogues. And characters felt more varied which is good for replayability. The game that deserves a second (or a third) playthrough that won't be mostly the same and you won't be able to see all content like in modern games - is a worthy game in my book.

Kind of hard in an age where NPCs forget you wiped a whole town after resting 48 hours.

But no need to worry, Fallout 3's new take on this will positively influence the outcome of future RPGs.

I want to (re)play something while waiting for that next good single rpg per 2 years.

I think I've missed the last cycle. Or was there an amendment you forgot to mention?

 

[Ogg]

Super Mario is accessible and creative. Fun.
FO3 and BG are bland and repetitive. Boring.

I'm OK with simplifying games only when you keep the motto "Easy to learn, hard to master" in mind.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

BG2 and FO3

What the fuck. Seriously?

Aside that, I don't know of any good pcrpg's that are not easily accessible. Especially good turn-based games are the epitome of accessible. Don't believe me? Look at hand-held consoles and the success of games like Pokemon and Advance Wars. Everybody understands turn-based except maybe western marketing people. But in hypespeak, accessible means usually less complex, less depth, less thought, while still not necessarily better UI or anything, because making good ui requires more effort, and effort is one of those things that accessible has had less in developement.

Maybe you're thinking of people like that guy who couldn't get out of Fallout's first cave. Well, games can't be made accessible enough for fuckers like that. Fallout is easily the most accessible of all CRPG's. It's character system makes instantly sense, the UI is very good, the combat is not very hard and all necessary information is readily available.

 

[baronjohn]

BG2 wasn't accessible. Even assuming the average mongrel could make it out of the first dungeon, there were tons of ways to get wiped out if you weren't paying careful attention (or just had bad luck) and enemies like Liches/Undead/Golems/Werewolves/Dragons/etc were tricky up to until you gained epic-level spells in ToB.

 

[Heresiarch]

And characters felt more varied which is good for replayability. The game that deserves a second (or a third) playthrough that won't be mostly the same and you won't be able to see all content like in modern games - is a worthy game in my book. I want to (re)play something while waiting for that next good single rpg per 2 years.

Wait, almost all the modern games is like that. There's something called seksbawks atchiefman that only purfectionizts can finish after often half a dozen of playthrough, and games like Oblivion and Fallout3 are possible to play FOREVAR because of mods! Actually you can (re)play Oblivion and Fallout 3 while waiting for TESV and FO4 for the following X years.