Incline The End Of The Dark Age

[Lilura]

But they’re not actual newfags, the original Obsidian crew were the heart of Black Isle.

DEV-WISE, they are post-Fallout and post-BG.

They didn't code any engines of their own at Black Isle.

They didn't even set the foundation for Fallout 2 (which they then fucked up).

They were all new, DEV-WISE.

=newfags.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Lilura is a vulture feasting on carcass of old rpgs. It's no surprise she is a rabid anti-incliner masquerading as a connoisseur of good rpg since she relies on the dark age and degradation of rpg to get views on her blog.

 

[Lilura]

Lilura is a vulture feasting on carcass of old rpgs.

Meh, there are a few twitches in the old Renaissance horse yet. People are still playing games of the era. Now, crpgaddict, that's someone kicking a dead horse. Almost no one plays the games he covers; they only want to read about them on his blog and watch YouTube vids because they haven't aged well and weren't all that good to begin with. It's a curiousity thing. The so-called "Golden Age" is long-dead and all but entombed.

It's no surprise she is a rabid anti-incliner masquerading as a connoisseur of good rpg since she relies on the dark age and degradation of rpg to get views on her blog.

Au contraire, I'm bona fide in that I genuinely consider Renaissance RPGs to be superior to "Golden Age"/current gen. It is impossible to come to a conclusion that I'm fraudulently pro-Renaissance: my views and how I express them, down to my vocab and syntax, are decidedly of that era. I was there. I played the games through it, and that's why I can pick frauds off from a mile away.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Lilura is a vulture feasting on carcass of old rpgs.

Meh, there are a few twitches in the old Renaissance horse yet. People are still playing games of the era. Now, crpgaddict, that's someone kicking a dead horse. Almost no one plays the games he covers; they only want to read about them on his blog and watch YouTube vids, because they haven't aged well.

It's no surprise she is a rabid anti-incliner masquerading as a connoisseur of good rpg since she relies on the dark age and degradation of rpg to get views on her blog.

Au contraire, I'm bona fide in that I genuinely consider Renaissance RPGs to be superior to Golden Age/current gen. It is impossible to come to a conclusion that I'm fraudulently pro-Renaissance: my views and how I express them, down to my vocab and syntax, are decidedly of that era. I was there. I played the games through it, and that's why I can pick frauds off from a mile away.

Where are articles about pathfinder:kingmaker on your blog??

 

[Lilura]

Where are articles about pathfinder:kingmaker on your blog??

u srs? Why would I cover that shit?

 

[Haba]

Yeah, can you hear the call in our rambling forum susurrations
That can expand beyond all hope of light and plunge us into unrelenting night?

A pall on truth and reason
It feels like hunting season
So avoid those lines of sight and we'll set this right

Welcome to the new Dark Ages
Yeah, I hope you're living right
These are the new Dark Ages
And the world might end tonight

Now come ye children one and all - let's heed the Golden Baby's call
And bide until the word is good and ripe and get plucked clean out of sight

Obsidian/inXile will be erased
Our kin will be immaculate ejaculate in space before the King of King's incline
He'll snatch us from above
Brothers, help me brofist it

Welcome to the new Dark Ages
Yeah, I hope you're living right
These are the new Dark Ages
And the world might end tonight

So, how do you sleep?
There's nothing to keep
This is decline

Because we're shitposters with golden rules
Who, who can't be moved by rational views, yeah

Welcome to the new Dark Ages
I hope you're living right
Welcome to the new Dark Ages
Say it again, yeah
These are the new Dark Ages
I hope you're living right
Welcome to the new Dark Ages
And the world might end tonight

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Where are articles about pathfinder:kingmaker on your blog??

u srs? Why would I cover that shit?

Because it's one of the best dnd-based rpgs? I mean you cover baldur's gates 1 and icewind dales and nwn, pathfinder:kingmaker is significantly better than those games...

 

[felipepepe]

The true incline was heralded by the likes of Styg and VD actually going out and making good games. It didn't have much to do with Obsidian, or with dumbasses who obsess about companies and developers instead of the actual games.

I am inclined to agree with this. We're kinda past the age of RPG titans of old ruling the scene like they used to, and we have for quite a while now been in an era where independents actually get to develop their own projects. Are they all 10/10 GOTY material? Not necessarily, but you can basically find a lot of stuff that suits your particular taste and let's not forget that pretty much all of the new devs/studios are precisely that - newcomers. Give them time to polish their craft a bit and who knows what masterpieces we might get.

Exactly, the age of incline had nothing to do with Bard's Tale IV, is all about having Bard's Tale remaster, Labyrinth of Refrain, Rance VI, Elminage Gothic, the 7th Circle, Operation Babel, Mary Skelter, Zanki Zero and other tons of indie dungeon-crawlers to choose from.

Same for Obsidian. Alongside PoE 2 we got Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but also Tower of Time, SpellForce 3, Shadows: Awakening, Dustwind, Shadow Tactics, We are the Dwarves, Hellsign, Fate Seeker, etc.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

But they’re not actual newfags, the original Obsidian crew were the heart of Black Isle.

DEV-WISE, they are post-Fallout and post-BG.

They didn't code any engines of their own at Black Isle.

They didn't even set the foundation for Fallout 2 (which they then fucked up).

They were all new, DEV-WISE.

=newfags.

Are you going to address the actual point about time periods or no? I drew the connection with Obsidian because in your earlier post you said Obsidian is nothing compared to Troika AND Black Isle. Are you now arguing that Black Isle—the studio, not the publisher—was shit after 1998?

Hey, Roguey Fairfax is the above correct, were the Black Isle devs who didn’t leave with Cainarsky all new-fags? Wasn’t Avellone there from the start of the label?

 

[Fairfax]

But they’re not actual newfags, the original Obsidian crew were the heart of Black Isle.

DEV-WISE, they are post-Fallout and post-BG.

They didn't code any engines of their own at Black Isle.

They didn't even set the foundation for Fallout 2 (which they then fucked up).

They were all new, DEV-WISE.

=newfags.

Are you going to address the actual point about time periods or no? I drew the connection with Obsidian because in your earlier post you said Obsidian is nothing compared to Troika AND Black Isle. Are you now arguing that Black Isle—the studio, not the publisher—was shit after 1998?

Hey, Roguey Fairfax is the above correct, were the Black Isle devs who didn’t leave with Cainarsky all new-fags? Wasn’t Avellone there from the start of the label?

It depends on what you mean by that. Though they were relatively new to the industry, most BISers had already worked on other games at Interplay. And yes, MCA was there from the start. He was hired in 96 to join Dragonplay, the division that eventually became BIS.

By the way, very few BIsers left with the Fallout trio. It was something like 6 people, and none of them was designer IIRC.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

I for one welcome the coming golden age of AAA action RPG.

The peasants will be kept alive with 10 years development cycle indie games. We will work them to their last bit.

Long live glorious AAA!

 

[Roguey]

Hey, Roguey Fairfax is the above correct, were the Black Isle devs who didn’t leave with Cainarsky all new-fags? Wasn’t Avellone there from the start of the label?

David Hendee and Scott Everts stuck around. A good chunk of the Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment teams worked on Descent to Undermountain, same as Chris.

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

Troika's worth far exceeded the combined worth of Larian, Owl Cat, Obsidian and the entire post-Renaissance taken as a whole.

Don't compare garbage with Troika, pls.

Arcanum and VTM - Bloodlines are still 2 of my all time favourite games. Troika were legends

 

[lophiaspis]

Au contraire, I'm bona fide in that I genuinely consider Renaissance RPGs to be superior to "Golden Age"/current gen. It is impossible to come to a conclusion that I'm fraudulently pro-Renaissance: my views and how I express them, down to my vocab and syntax, are decidedly of that era. I was there. I played the games through it, and that's why I can pick frauds off from a mile away.

I think some revised terminology is in order. The term Renaissance seems more appropriate for our current era, when we are coming out of a real Dark Age. I propose:

Ancient Age (1980-1997): Starting with Ultima, moving through the Gold Box and ending with the rise of the voice-acted, SVGA, CD-ROM CRPG published by Interplay.
Classical Age (1997-2004): Starting with Fallout and ending with Bloodlines and the fall of Troika, other highlights include the Baldur's Gate series.
Dark Age (2004-2018): Dominated by dumbed down console AAA and MMORPGs (which absorbed almost all the talent from the Classical Age), with increasing renascence in CRPGs towards the end of the age. Many years of absolute CRPG drought followed by Obsidian and inXile failing to reach the bar set by their Interplay-Troika-Bioware predecessors. Kickstarter raised a lot of hopes with mostly disappointing results until the end of the period.
Renaissance (2018...): Owlcat finally made the first Baldur's Gate clone that doesn't suck and is in many ways better than Baldur's Gate. ZA/UM seems likely to continue this streak with the first good Torment clone. Obsidian and inXile absorbed by Microsoft. Lots of new talent are moving into CRPGs, aided by digital distribution. Tons of new CRPGs published every year, with steadily increasing quality.

 

[Black Angel]

^That's insinuating Age of Decadence and Underrail are part of 'Dark Age', when they're certainly the true harbinger of New Age of Incline, so I disagree with such revision.

 

[Lilura]

Renaissance (2018...)

Sorry, but bolding words and years does not make your post authoritative.

Being the leading commentator for the Renaissance does, though. Plus, you need a blog or you're just lost in the shuffle with all the other 'tards.

Spoiler

Diablo, Fallout and Daggerfall kicked of the Renaissance or API era. Before and after that, RPGs were and are shit. BioWare claimed BG kicked off the Renaissance, but the Infinity Engine was RTwP (and thus decline).

What you call the Renaissance I call the "Shit-tier era".

 

[felipepepe]

I think some revised terminology is in order. The term Renaissance seems more appropriate for our current era, when we are coming out of a real Dark Age. I propose:

Ancient Age (1980-1997): Starting with Ultima, moving through the Gold Box and ending with the rise of the voice-acted, SVGA, CD-ROM CRPG published by Interplay.
Classical Age (1997-2004): Starting with Fallout and ending with Bloodlines and the fall of Troika, other highlights include the Baldur's Gate series.
Dark Age (2004-2018): Dominated by dumbed down console AAA and MMORPGs (which absorbed almost all the talent from the Classical Age), with increasing renascence in CRPGs towards the end of the age. Many years of absolute CRPG drought followed by Obsidian and inXile failing to reach the bar set by their Interplay-Troika-Bioware predecessors. Kickstarter raised a lot of hopes with mostly disappointing results until the end of the period.
Renaissance (2018...): Owlcat finally made the first Baldur's Gate clone that doesn't suck and is in many ways better than Baldur's Gate. ZA/UM seems likely to continue this streak with the first good Torment clone. Obsidian and inXile absorbed by Microsoft. Lots of new talent are moving into CRPGs, aided by digital distribution. Tons of new CRPGs published every year, with steadily increasing quality.

This is plain stupid. RPGs had a huge growth in the late 80's then died in the early/mid 90's due to Doom, RTS and consoles. A lot of things changed, you can't say 1980-1997 were all the same just because you don't care.

Also, FFS, your tastes don't matter. Owlcat is fucking irrelevant in the larger picture, what matters is that the BioWare/Bethesda duopoly ended and we once again have hundreds of devs producing games, thanks to things like accessible engines, digital distribution, crowdfunding, and even the market maturing and learning how to deal with indies. Remember, Freedom Force 2 flopped HARD because it didn't have a way to reach consumers before Steam existed, and Torchlight was revolutionary simply due to selling a full professional game at $20.

Things like that are what decide if a market is healthy or not, it has nothing to do with this "someone made a game I like, the world spins around me!" nonsense you wrote.

 

[Fairfax]

Diablo, Fallout and Daggerfall kicked of the Renaissance or API era. Before and after that, RPGs were and are shit. BioWare claimed BG kicked off the Renaissance, but the Infinity Engine was RTwP (and thus decline).

How is Diablo incline and part of a Renaissance?
Also, if you believe all RPGs before Daggerfall were shit, it makes no sense to call it a "Renaissance" in the first place.

 

[lophiaspis]

^That's insinuating Age of Decadence and Underrail are part of 'Dark Age', when they're certainly the true harbinger of New Age of Incline, so I disagree with such revision.

You're right, the beginning of incline from 2012-2018 should probably be a special era similar to the High/Late Middle Ages or something. No idea what to call it though. And I don't think it should be part of the Renaissance simply because I don't think its CRPG output was equal to or better than the 'Classical' era.

 

[lophiaspis]

Also, FFS, your tastes don't matter. Owlcat is fucking irrelevant in the larger picture, what matters is that the BioWare/Bethesda duopoly ended and we once again have hundreds of devs producing games, thanks to things like accessible engines, digital distribution, crowdfunding, and even the market maturing and learning how to deal with indies. Remember, Freedom Force 2 flopped HARD because it didn't have a way to reach consumers before Steam existed, and Torchlight was revolutionary simply due to selling a full professional game at $20.

Things like that are what decide if a market is healthy or not, it has nothing to do with this "someone made a game I like, the world spins around me!" nonsense you wrote.

I see writing a book is no guarantee for possessing reading comprehension. If you read the part you quoted, you will see that I already listed what you brought up as characteristic of the new period:

Lots of new talent are moving into CRPGs, aided by digital distribution. Tons of new CRPGs published every year, with steadily increasing quality.

And I would argue that "they finally made a game in an "old" style that is equal to or better than the greats of the previous era" is a pretty damn significant milestone.

How can you call it a "renaissance" if the output is still inferior to the old days? What other CRPG of the past 14 years can equal Fallout, PS:T, or BG2 in quality? Are you saying AoD was as good as Fallout? Please.

All the structural factors don't matter if the best result is still merely good rather than excellent. It's only now that we are starting to see the payoff from these new structures in terms of really high quality games.

This is plain stupid. RPGs had a huge growth in the late 80's then died in the early/mid 90's due to Doom, RTS and consoles. A lot of things changed, you can't say 1980-1997 were all the same just because you don't care.

So how would you periodize CRPGs?

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

I love the eternal Codex wankfest over defining the eras of RPGs even more than "what is an RPG" discussions.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Diablo, Fallout and Daggerfall kicked of the Renaissance or API era. Before and after that, RPGs were and are shit. BioWare claimed BG kicked off the Renaissance, but the Infinity Engine was RTwP (and thus decline).

How is Diablo incline and part of a Renaissance?
Also, if you believe all RPGs before Daggerfall were shit, it makes no sense to call it a "Renaissance" in the first place.

I think Lilura put together a bot to maintain her presence on the codex. It works with some things, like “don’t you besmirch the name of [beloved, defunct developer]” but then struggles with others, “newfags newfags everywhere. Especially at Black Isle
Studios” or “I am the leading commentator on the RPG renaissance, which began with... Diablo.”

I’m sure with a little more work she’ll get it right.

 

[aweigh]

All of these RPG era posts are dumb. Not as dumb as moving the Assassin's Creed thread to CRPG, but still dumb.

 

[Tigranes]

The true incline was heralded by the likes of Styg and VD actually going out and making good games. It didn't have much to do with Obsidian, or with dumbasses who obsess about companies and developers instead of the actual games.

I am inclined to agree with this. We're kinda past the age of RPG titans of old ruling the scene like they used to, and we have for quite a while now been in an era where independents actually get to develop their own projects. Are they all 10/10 GOTY material? Not necessarily, but you can basically find a lot of stuff that suits your particular taste and let's not forget that pretty much all of the new devs/studios are precisely that - newcomers. Give them time to polish their craft a bit and who knows what masterpieces we might get.

Exactly, the age of incline had nothing to do with Bard's Tale IV, is all about having Bard's Tale remaster, Labyrinth of Refrain, Rance VI, Elminage Gothic, the 7th Circle, Operation Babel, Mary Skelter, Zanki Zero and other tons of indie dungeon-crawlers to choose from.

Same for Obsidian. Alongside PoE 2 we got Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but also Tower of Time, SpellForce 3, Shadows: Awakening, Dustwind, Shadow Tactics, We are the Dwarves, Hellsign, Fate Seeker, etc.

All of that said, I remain highly appreciative of Obsidian for shining a small candle throughout the real Dark Ages. When it looked like all we were getting were soil erosion, have you seen my father and THIS IS THE NEW SHIT, they kept going with a series of good games with their heart mostly in their right place. For a good 7-8 years they kept the flame alive, and if they have lost their touch and also been superseded by the likes of Styg, that's no terrible crime.

 

[Okagron]

I had no nostalgia for Troika games and i really enjoyed Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines. And i did my first playthrough this year.