What makes a RPG DULL ?

[David Xachaturian]

We've seen our share of roleplaying games and imitators over the years, ranging from deathless classic, to hit, to fruit of the loom, to outright shallow and overhyped. What do you think, which traits make an RPG suck or cease being an RPG at all?

 

[Lim-Lim]

Bethseda.

 

[MetalCraze]

SoZ is a very good recent example of the extremely dull RPG. It has every answer you will ever need.

 

[Worm King]

SoZ is a very good recent example of the extremely dull RPG. It has every answer you will ever need.

Shut up, man! God. We all know your opinion on the game, so stop posting it in every thread.

 

[janjetina]

Lack of meaningful dialogue options (for example, see Oblivion)
Lack of interesting characters (see Oblivion)
Lack of story (see Oblivion)
Horrible real time twitch combat (see Oblivion)
Lack of sensible character system and progression (see Oblivion)

One word answer to your question: Oblivion.

 

[Melcar]

Empty choices, tedious combat that fails to properly reward players (either in the form of loot or proper experience gains) and/or frustrating combat (not the same as "hard"), broken character building system that gives no incentive to players to play differently every time.

 

[xuerebx]

-Uninteresting storylines which make me not want to continue playing the game.
-Dull characters.
-A character creation/evolution system which isn't deep/fun/influential [By character creation system I mean stats, traits, appearance etc everything related to this].
-No replay value (includes anything which diminishes the replay value of a game, such as c&c, etc).

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Bethesda.

Compressed.

 

[David Xachaturian]

You know, the title I was thinking of when I typed the "shallow and overhyped" part has two O's in it.

 

[David Xachaturian]

Wow, this same title manages to have every flaw you've given so far, guys.

 

[MetalCraze]

SoZ is a very good recent example of the extremely dull RPG. It has every answer you will ever need.

Shut up, man! God. We all know your opinion on the game, so stop posting it in every thread.

By every you mean a few (even not all) threads about... SoZ. Oh and a thread about dull rpgs. God I'm such a fucking bastard - posting my opinion (that is different from yours) about SoZ in EVERY thread.

 

[A user named cat]

Bethesda, Bioware, Mistmare, Breath of Fire, Dungeon Lords, Diablo clones etc.

 

[jiujitsu]

*Cookiecutter story

*Cookiecutter characters

*Combat that consists solely of damage this thing before it damages you.

*Nothing but fetch this, bring this to this guy, side quests.

*Soulless companions.

*Lame ass wordy-for-no-reason villains.

*Area structure that looks like it came from a limited toolset.

There's probably more, but that's all off the top of my head.

 

[racofer]

SoZ is a very good recent example of the extremely dull RPG. It has every answer you will ever need.

Not to mention awful camera, user interface and shitty optimization.

 

[NiM82]

Cross platform design, aka designed for consoles.

Inability to create an exciting/immersive atmosphere (combination of writing, lore & story).

 

[David Xachaturian]

Funny thing is, the panacea to all these flaws is a great writer. You won't notice broken balance and boring combat much, when there's a story and characters and setting that keep you going. And it doesn't work the other way around, I think.

 

[Suchy]

Running around and killing things.

 

[Korgan]

Over 9000 weak but annoying trolls in every encounter.

 

[BethesdaLove]

Faggy threads

 

[Melcar]

I don't so much mind cookiecutter shit as proper game mechanics. I mean, stories you read once or twice and you get the gist of it, but as long as the in-game mechanics are able to keep you enthralled you will find yourself playing over and over again despite the absence of "a good story". And again I see two opposing factions here; those that prefer "good storytelling" ala PT:S, and those that prefer good game mechanics and character building system ala Arcanum. Both are valid forms of an "entertaining RPG", but fuck it, this is The Codex... fuck storytelling .

 

[Emotional Vampire]

The "I will let you through if you do these quests for me:" factor.

 

[Dangersaurus]

Having to spend half an hour or more making your character/party, then spending the next hour or so talking talking talking to the oh-so-precious villagers in the starter town. Throw in a tutorial fight or two that can't be lost.

Yeah, I put all these points into fighting/spellcasting/whatever so I can go get your wine, feed your pigs, deliver a letter and mulch a goddamn field. Would you please tell me about your relationships with all of your relatives, how the last crop was and what the local scuttlebutt is? I'm soooo interested.

 

[Kavax]

FedEx quests, long and boring and enemy-full dungeons, high fantasy settings, and lack of non-combat skills or gameplay.

 

[JarlFrank]

Having to spend half an hour or more making your character/party, then spending the next hour or so talking talking talking to the oh-so-precious villagers in the starter town. Throw in a tutorial fight or two that can't be lost.

Yeah, I put all these points into fighting/spellcasting/whatever so I can go get your wine, feed your pigs, deliver a letter and mulch a goddamn field. Would you please tell me about your relationships with all of your relatives, how the last crop was and what the local scuttlebutt is? I'm soooo interested.

You know what's even worse? The fact that those people give you, a total stranger they've never seen before, some rather private tasks that you'd rather ask your neighbor or good friend to do. The general fact that every single fucking NPC, be it a lowly peasant, a damsel in distress, a government official with a diplomtic problem, a police officer, even the king himself gives you quests even though they don't know you. I mean, I wouldn't trust someone who carries a lot of weapons around and asks me if I have any job for him. It's stupid.

 

[hiver]

respawning enemies.

level scaling

sand boxiness