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Decline Why haven't more RPGs succeeded at C&C like Fallout has?

Joined
Aug 10, 2019
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The formula is very simple, just refer to this post by Jarl Frank to get a sense of what i'm talking about. Considering the RPG revival that's been going on these past few years, why have so many developers failed to deliver on their promises ("We are inspired by Fallout hurp-dee-durp") ala Age of Decadence, Wasteland 2 and to a lesser extend the PoE series? Obviously there are UnderRail and Atom RPG and they do a somewhat good job of replicating the formula, but why have there been so many failures? Is the cost of making such a game just that high or talent levels required that super human? I doubt Cain and Boyarsky had that much more money or talent than some of our current-day developers who attempt this stuff.
 

ScrotumBroth

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
AoD butthurters ought to gather in a support group, and pass a doll around showing where Vince touched them.

Therapeutic TV and Xbox with Oblivion and Skyrim should be available so members can stop hyperventilating before it's their turn to talk.
 

Beggar

Cipher
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Dec 7, 2014
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Fallout came out at the right time and filled the gap that should have been filled. Everything else is just mimicking at the wrong time. Do something unique with your own ideas. Copy cats are shit
 

jac8awol

Arbiter
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Feb 2, 2018
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408
I blame incompetence and arrogance.

Fallout had a very gritty, bleak world. Yes there were flashes of the absurd, but the basic setting felt cohesive and believable. This was incredibly competent design. I'd argue that more recent games have been increasingly infested with SJW trash, to the point where studios are incompetent when it comes to building believable worlds. For example, Tyranny, POE2. If the world and characters feel phony, how can there be logical choices and consequences?

Writers seem to also be arrogant, in that there is some 'incredible' story that they want you to follow, your choices be damned. These games get so far up their own asses with their self-important narratives, that players never get a chance to feel the consequences of character choices.
 
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Writers seem to also be arrogant, in that there is some 'incredible' story that they want you to follow, your choices be damned.
This is absolutely true, specially with the Obsidiots. On the other hand we have the Bullshit Game Studios with Emil Whateverthefuck who, knowing that people will just ignore the story, doesn't seem to even bother anymore. There needs to be a middle ground. A middle ground that only a few games like Fallout and Arcanum have managed to achieve. I think incompetence is a good guess. Also, it doesn't help that dirty fanbois like ScrotumBroth keeps positively re-inforcing objectively bad practices like selling a CYOA as an RPG ala AoD.
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
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AoD butthurters ought to gather in a support group, and pass a doll around showing where Vince touched them.
Judging by how in love you are with the game, i'm more concerned about your asshole. Vince must be pounding you gooood.

You can tell a fanbot by how they call him Vince. The stink of faggotry that comes from that is just disgusting.

Ohh, please "Vince", give me a list that I can click on with all the places where you want to put in your dick in me.
 

hell bovine

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Succeeds at C&C gameplay =/= Succeed financially with games.

Game developers who concentrate on 1st part wont focus on 2nd part. And vice versa, if they focus on 2nd part they neglect 1st part.
Yep. Imo it's steam (and similar business models of selling) that contributed most to the general decline of quality. When you know that the majority of players will not even finish the game, but will likely abandon it halfway through, then the focus shifts from making an interesting & complex game, to making a game that looks interesting for the first few hours or so. It doesn't matter if there is nothing behind the shine; as long as the player plays the game long enough to not be able to refund it.
 

Lemming42

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To pick the easiest answer, Fallout 2 surpassed Fallout in terms of sheer options in quests.

As for modern RPGs, most of New Vegas surpasses most of Fallout choice-wise, I think AoD does deliver on c&c... after that it gets kind of difficult.

Wasteland 2 wasn't awful for c&c, it's just that most of the consequences were fucking dumb, where the rule is almost always "if you try to do the right thing, everything will go to hell for no reason". The one that still makes me properly laugh is if you defuse the nuke in Arizona. Sure, everyone in the entire canyon instantly turned into a violent raider because the rangers shut down a warhead, alright. How did they find out? Because the leader of the nuke-religion loudly declared, in shock, in front of all his followers, that the nuke was down. Great.

Alpha Protocol is a very good example of c&c, no matter what anyone says about it.

Deus Ex HR and MD both have reasonable c&c, even if the games basically play out the same way no matter what you do.
 
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Deus Ex HR and MD both have reasonable c&c, even if the games basically play out the same way no matter what you do.
Doesn't the latter half of this sentence eliminate the first half?
 
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Reminder that it's impossible to completely avoid combat in Fallout 1 and 2.

Discuss
It sucks because the worst thing about Fallout 1 and 2 is the shitty TB combat. Still, it doesn't bother me too too much because i'm never a pacifist. Quite the opposite.
 

Lemming42

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Deus Ex HR and MD both have reasonable c&c, even if the games basically play out the same way no matter what you do.
Doesn't the latter half of this sentence eliminate the first half?

Sort of, but there's reasonably c&c in the sense that there's different solutions to sidequests, different dialogue, the classic Deus Ex choices of how to approach any given object and what kind of tools to use, etc. It's just that the events of the game are overall linear and you end up in the same place at the end no matter what.
 
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Deus Ex HR and MD both have reasonable c&c, even if the games basically play out the same way no matter what you do.
Doesn't the latter half of this sentence eliminate the first half?

Sort of, but there's reasonably c&c in the sense that there's different solutions to sidequests, different dialogue, the classic Deus Ex choices of how to approach any given object and what kind of tools to use, etc. It's just that the events of the game are overall linear and you end up in the same place at the end no matter what.
I see. Well that's not what i mean by c&c usually. as the name implies, there has to be consequence for the choice. Choosing to crawl in a vent instead of dialogue is just an angle of approach. Choice would be to decide whether or not you kill a character for example, and the consequence would be something tangible in the story. What you described is just a path someone would take to go from point A to B. I have played all Deus Ex games. The deus ex games are not high on actual c&c. Something like Planescape is, for comparison.

This is why your statement was paradoxical. You are confusing something else with c&c.

Put differently, it's not a 'choice' IF there is no 'consequence'. If you choose between approaches 1 to 5 and always come to outcome B from starting point A, then you are not making real choices. You are just falling under the illusion of choice. That's why Age of Decadence is a shit, dishonest game that tricks the player into thinking it's an actual RPG with actual C&C, rather than the CYOA VN that it really is.
 

Lemming42

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Well, Fallout itself always ends with the player ending up at point B (Master destroyed, Mariposa destroyed, barring the game over mutant endings). Same for Fallout 2 (Oil Rig nuked, Arroyo people saved). It's been argued on this site before that a part of Fallout's choice and consequence lies in the mechanics themselves, the choice of character build and the consequence of being able to interact with the world in certain ways and restricted in certain others.
 
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to make a deep game you need quality and talent. talent is rare, gets rarer by the minute, many of our heroes of the past were complete talentless hacks only kept afloat by outstanding teams.
history showed that the big masses can't recognize quality even if it bit their asses and that they're willing to buy whatever shit some corrupt journos is willing to shill for.
quality is expensive to achieve, talent is expensive to obtain.
why in hell should some trump wannabe gamble money to produce something of quality when he can pour a few dimes and produce a best seller anyway?
 

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