Did Baldur's Gate really have an impact?

[syllopsium]

Personally I think BG did have a big impact. It lost the sheer interactivity and dramatic scenes that Ultima VII/VII part 2 had, but gained considerably on usable combat, spellcasting and significantly improved visuals (let's not mention the path finding).

The main criticism I'd place against BG and BG2 is that they were rather unfocused and generic. Perhaps they needed to be that way to gather the market, but it clearly wasn't an engine issue as PS:T revealed.

Neither do I think that the Infinity Engine could have been endlessly reused; by the time I was playing IWD the limitations of 640x480x256 were showing themselves, and I was expecting improved animation and resolution. I don't consider either PS:T or IWD2 to be inadequate these days, but I suspect others would not share my opinion.

I still think shorter, more focused games might be the way to go. I'll hold up BG2 as one of the best RPGs ever, but it's only because of the sheer amount of detail - not for any one stand out reason. In particular BG, BG2 suffer from a flabby midgame with little direction and all of the IE games (except PST and possibly IWD2 - not finished it yet) have an end boss that is ridiculously more difficult than prior battles (or, to be more accurate : up until that point you can escape with poor tactics. Enforcing proper tactics right at the end of the game is extremely poor design).

I did enjoy both ToB (except the final battle) and ToSC - both fairly linear, well crafted games with finely tuned game balance. IWD is similar - there's just enough plot to push through to the next bout of fighting.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

I wouldn't disagree that BG2 had a huge impact - I have seen people all over the industry namedropping it for YEARS. I contend that gauging a game's impact purely on the number of immediate imitators, however, is an inaccurate method, especially when it comes to how long and complex a process it is to make RPGs.

Also, I don't disagree that the system of hours of investment becoming synonymous with quality (or a lack thereof) is pretty fucked, yes indeed. I think to a certain degree, some RPGs (I'll say indie ones mostly, as they are outside the realm of the "40 HRS + OR GTFO" of the more demanding publishers or leads) are bucking this trend, but it's not the sort of thing that unfucks itself overnight. Regrettably enough.

 

[Nex]

end boss that is ridiculously more difficult than prior battles (or, to be more accurate : up until that point you can escape with poor tactics. Enforcing proper tactics right at the end of the game is extremely poor design).

You can cheese your way through those battles too rather easily.

 

[Gragt]

Most people also have this silly idea that a good RPG must be "epic" and that "epic" primarily means huge and very long. You can see the word used in most reviews for Bethesda or Bioware games. Apart from completely misunderstanding what the word means, I believe it also plays a part on what people expect in terms of lenght and volume of combat.

 

[syllopsium]

end boss that is ridiculously more difficult than prior battles (or, to be more accurate : up until that point you can escape with poor tactics. Enforcing proper tactics right at the end of the game is extremely poor design).

You can cheese your way through those battles too rather easily.

You can, but the flavour of cheese is different. I'll readily concede that sorting play balance is difficult as is preventing cheese. It's also entirely possible that cheese is necessary for those players who aren't interested in long, drawn out tactical combat.

Even accepting that reality, though, the player ideally needs to be restricted before the final battle. That way it starts to become a challenge rather than a chore.

I quite enjoyed taking on the (non improved) Demogorgon in Watchers Keep, for instance, but the final ToB battle was just an exercise in boredom and pain.

I think I'm still of the opinion that the final battle should be marginally easier than what came before. By that stage I want to see how the game ends, rather than spending ages on the final fight.

 

[syllopsium]

I also wonder if there are simply different target RPG markets. Concentrating on complex Western RPGs rather than casual 'RPG alikes' or JRPGs, there's the question of your priorities in life.

I've always liked RPGs, and still do, but I choose to spend vastly more time seeing friends, exercising and trying to do my own programming. 10+ years ago I probably wouldn't have balked too much at replaying BG2, but now the thought of commiting that much time gives me pause. Neither do I like long drawn out turn based battles for anything other than a significant foe (I'm more into plot).

It's difficult, because I think the ridiculous amount of advertised playtime has been a factor in my past purchase of games. However, there are currently at least four RPGs in shrinkwrap on my shelf, three barely started, another two I've got some way into and yet two more I've put in some serious(ish) time (IWD2 and Oblivion) that I'm still not even half way through.

One solution might be to be more disciplined instead of trying dozens of side quests, but another might simply be to choose quality shorter games.. I'm not sure where the correct length is, but I bet it's closer to the size of ToB than of BG2.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

I wouldn't disagree that BG2 had a huge impact - I have seen people all over the industry namedropping it for YEARS. I contend that gauging a game's impact purely on the number of immediate imitators, however, is an inaccurate method, especially when it comes to how long and complex a process it is to make RPGs.

Also, I don't disagree that the system of hours of investment becoming synonymous with quality (or a lack thereof) is pretty fucked, yes indeed. I think to a certain degree, some RPGs (I'll say indie ones mostly, as they are outside the realm of the "40 HRS + OR GTFO" of the more demanding publishers or leads) are bucking this trend, but it's not the sort of thing that unfucks itself overnight. Regrettably enough.

The passive female. Everything has to happen "by itself."

 

[Raghar]

As for "why not randomize stuff," it sounds insane, but getting randomization right is one of the hardest things EVER to do properly.

Aw cm'on. It's not that hard it just needs in house research and the person who invented these algorithms must do the programming as well.
It's actually quite enjoyable, geomorphing, terrain generation, and other stuff.

A randomized loot just requires loot tables. Thought DA botched it because they didn't allow to loot all pieces of armor opponent had, they also didn't limit carry capacity by weight.

There are more complicated things in RPG development. For example when a character has a cursed ring -2 and a blessed ring of protection +3, what would be the result? What would happen when the character would try to push that bear who slept peacefully few meters away from the road?

Players are often behaving fairly strangely, often because they are accustomed to unnecessary friendly games, should they discover consequence of theirs foolish action 20 hours later?

 

[syllopsium]

Players are often behaving fairly strangely, often because they are accustomed to unnecessary friendly games, should they discover consequence of theirs foolish action 20 hours later?

That particular question isn't really debatable : no, with caveats.

It's only acceptable to have unpleasant 20hour+ later consequences if the player has already got used to the idea that their actions have unforeseen consequences and if it's possible to cope with the punishment for their actions.

The only time it is acceptable is when the player is directly, explicitly informed that this will break their main quest/the game, either in game or by breaking the fourth wall with a 'this will make the game unfinishable, are you sure you want to be stupid?' or a 'game over. now reload' dialog. Morrowind's easily missed single line of text in the status window after killing an essential NPC is not a shining example of this.

 

[DraQ]

end boss that is ridiculously more difficult than prior battles (or, to be more accurate : up until that point you can escape with poor tactics. Enforcing proper tactics right at the end of the game is extremely poor design).

It's the exact opposite way around.

Players are often behaving fairly strangely, often because they are accustomed to unnecessary friendly games, should they discover consequence of theirs foolish action 20 hours later?

That particular question isn't really debatable : no, with caveats.

It's only acceptable to have unpleasant 20hour+ later consequences if the player has already got used to the idea that their actions have unforeseen consequences and if it's possible to cope with the punishment for their actions.

A bait followed with "what the hell player?" moment early in game should drive the point home.

Morrowind's easily missed single line of text in the status window after killing an essential NPC is not a shining example of this.

Youa r edumb.

If the window popping up in the middle of the screen (spontaneously, like no other in game) stopping the gameplay and telling player basically that they are morons and have screwed up is inadequate, then nothing save for the computer tasing them in the balls is.

 

[syllopsium]

end boss that is ridiculously more difficult than prior battles (or, to be more accurate : up until that point you can escape with poor tactics. Enforcing proper tactics right at the end of the game is extremely poor design).

It's the exact opposite way around.

What's the exact other way round? The rest of the battles need tactics and the final one does not? Either way, the final battle should not be substantially different than prior battles.

A bait followed with "what the hell player?" moment early in game should drive the point home.

That is what I said.. Assuming it's a bait that's actually taken, of course.

If the window popping up in the middle of the screen (spontaneously, like no other in game) stopping the gameplay and telling player basically that they are morons and have screwed up is inadequate, then nothing save for the computer tasing them in the balls is.

Personally I've not had a problem with it. I know multiple people have. Whilst there's always the possibility that they're all dumb, the more likely possibility is that the design is flawed, especially if people get distracted in the middle of a battle.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Players are often behaving fairly strangely, often because they are accustomed to unnecessary friendly games, should they discover consequence of theirs foolish action 20 hours later?

That particular question isn't really debatable : no, with caveats.

It's only acceptable to have unpleasant 20hour+ later consequences if the player has already got used to the idea that their actions have unforeseen consequences and if it's possible to cope with the punishment for their actions.

The only time it is acceptable is when the player is directly, explicitly informed that this will break their main quest/the game, either in game or by breaking the fourth wall with a 'this will make the game unfinishable, are you sure you want to be stupid?' or a 'game over. now reload' dialog. Morrowind's easily missed single line of text in the status window after killing an essential NPC is not a shining example of this.

What if we got our priorities straight, first. ANYTHING is better than the current hand-holding. Anything. Personally, I want developers to remember the early days design philosophy: make a game that will frustrate the player's efforts to beat it as much as possible WHILE making him want to come back to the game and TRY to beat it. That's a good middle-road to travel in terms of game design.

Apologizing for hand-holdy game-design in an age like this — is superfluous and a bad tactic if you want better games. A better tactic is to focus on complaining about existing and likely flaws and misdeeds.

Support for the extreme of masochist gaming is good, because it brings the center, now far to the hand-holdy wrong, more towards the right (there is no joy without pain, no great satisfaction without great effort; that's a biological-evolutionary fact).

 

[syllopsium]

What if we got our priorities straight, first. ANYTHING is better than the current hand-holding. Anything. Personally, I want developers to remember the early days design philosophy: make a game that will frustrate the player's efforts to beat it as much as possible WHILE making him want to come back to the game and TRY to beat it. That's a good middle-road to travel in terms of game design.

Sure, but the problem is that the games were sometimes a little too frustrating.

We can't return to where we were - RPGs have evolved and also become a bit more mainstream - which is good for providing new games, but less so for hardcore players.

I don't deny things have travelled a bit too far to the handholding side - I'm not a believer in levelling, for instance (despite the fact I've not turned it off in Oblivion yet).

Things like the magic quest arrow are definite improvements, but they've been taken too far. As mentioned elsewhere they should probably only point at the general area. All it needs is a bit of reining in, rather than wholesale changes.

Don't get me wrong - I like some more hardcore RPGs, but I can see the advantages of making things a bit less hardcore, and welcome changes that reduce micromanaging crap and actually get on with story, amongst other things.

 

[Mattresses]

We can't return to where we were - RPGs have evolved and also become a bit more mainstream - which is good for providing new games, but less so for hardcore players.

this thinking is bullshit, rpgs didnn't evolve into the mainstream shooter/interactive fic turds we are now served regularly, rpgs have simply stopped being made.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

What if we got our priorities straight, first. ANYTHING is better than the current hand-holding. Anything. Personally, I want developers to remember the early days design philosophy: make a game that will frustrate the player's efforts to beat it as much as possible WHILE making him want to come back to the game and TRY to beat it. That's a good middle-road to travel in terms of game design.

Sure, but the problem is that the games were sometimes a little too frustrating.

We can't return to where we were - RPGs have evolved and also become a bit more mainstream - which is good for providing new games, but less so for hardcore players.

I don't deny things have travelled a bit too far to the handholding side - I'm not a believer in levelling, for instance (despite the fact I've not turned it off in Oblivion yet).

Things like the magic quest arrow are definite improvements, but they've been taken too far. As mentioned elsewhere they should probably only point at the general area. All it needs is a bit of reining in, rather than wholesale changes.

Don't get me wrong - I like some more hardcore RPGs, but I can see the advantages of making things a bit less hardcore, and welcome changes that reduce micromanaging crap and actually get on with story, amongst other things.

Isn't the world full of movies if your primary concern is to "get on with the story"?

Games aren't supposed to be passive entertainment. Anything that makes them passive is against their nature. Forget the "micro management" straw man. I haven't said anything about micro-management, except that I don't care for it.

The magic compass arrow that keeps telling you where to go increases passivity. Think about what I've written here sometime when you play Oblivion, for example. Notice how you don't have to pay attention to the environment features to navigate to your destination. Notice how you pay more attention to the fake voodoo compass than the actual game world, and notice how that undermines your immersion in the game world and makes you just passively follow the arrow instead of do things.

Short version: stop being a barely conscious moron.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

The masses buy what they are served anyway. (Why spend so much money on marketing if that's not true? Why not make good games and market them, rather than bad games and market them? Is the latter option really so much easier? Is easy always better? Even for you, personally? @Obsidian Entertainment et al.)

 

[SCO]

Awor - if they were shorter? Fuck yes they would be easier to make. Provided that the shortness also meant a relative decrease and not increase in complexity - not "oh let's make it shorter but woven like a watertight basket made of monofilament". There's just an unbelievable amount of shit to test in RPGs, and ways that it can break. If there's a crash that, say, occurs 40 hours in - and it doesn't have an immediately understandable cause - it's sure as fuck not easy to replay 40 hours of a game EXACTLY THE SAME MOVEMENT-PERFECT WAY to try and reproduce the event. It can be done, yes, and there's a department to do it, but it's such a preposterous investment of time and money that RPGs are released "as tested as they can be." It's definitely not like testing, say, a long FPS. Not even in the same ballpark.

You could log all input and random sources. It's what some studios do to implement replays & help testing.

Still think design by contract is where it is.
Personally i abhor lazy Singletons. I'm trying to eliminate one in code right now since the initialization calls the singleton later on, so there are lots of if(singleton != null) in the code for no reason at all.

 

[syllopsium]

Isn't the world full of movies if your primary concern is to "get on with the story"?

No, because they're interactive and there are multiple ways to work your way through the story. My favourite RPGs are games like PS:T and Ultima VI to VII part 2. If that makes me a movie lover, rather than wanting a game populated by a living world with no overall story then so be it. I also play hack and slashes like IWD, roguelikes and others, but generally I enjoy a decent narrative.

Notice how you pay more attention to the fake voodoo compass than the actual game world, and notice how that undermines your immersion in the game world and makes you just passively follow the arrow instead of do things.

Short version: stop being a barely conscious moron.

I don't entirely disagree, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. Oblivion is a vast game with many plots and an awful lot of landscape, which it's not difficult to get lost in.

I agree the arrow should not be too precise, but due to the scale I find fast travel and easy navigation options a huge boon. Without them the game would be even more ridiculously long. Sometimes I like navigating properly and finding hidden areas, and other times I don't care for five minutes walking to the next destination or running the possibility of random encounters when I'm low on health and recovering would be a chore rather than a benefit.

Fighting the fifteenth wolf or bandit that day isn't fun. Getting sent through a painting to rescue a painter from his creation is, and so is the first time you have an all out battle between a magic user and a wisp..

If the game was smaller, the maps were decent and navigation was an active part of the game, I perhaps wouldn't have a problem with it. Usually, that's not the case.

To aim a specific criticism at Oblivion, one issue of navigation is that many of the hidden/unmarked areas aren't very unique. After the first fort or dungeon the rest are fairly similar and they respawn stupidly fast. I suppose that's more realistic than something new and exciting being round each corner, but it does tend to favour fast traval.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Isn't the world full of movies if your primary concern is to "get on with the story"?

No, because they're interactive and there are multiple ways to work your way through the story. My favourite RPGs are games like PS:T and Ultima VI to VII part 2. If that makes me a movie lover, rather than wanting a game populated by a living world with no overall story then so be it. I also play hack and slashes like IWD, roguelikes and others, but generally I enjoy a decent narrative.

Notice how you pay more attention to the fake voodoo compass than the actual game world, and notice how that undermines your immersion in the game world and makes you just passively follow the arrow instead of do things.

Short version: stop being a barely conscious moron.

I don't entirely disagree, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. Oblivion is a vast game with many plots and an awful lot of landscape, which it's not difficult to get lost in.

I agree the arrow should not be too precise, but due to the scale I find fast travel and easy navigations options a huge boon. Without them the game would be even more ridiculously long. Sometimes I like navigating properly and finding hidden areas, and other times I don't care for five minutes walking to the next destination or running the possibility of random encounters when I'm low on health and recovering would be a chore rather than a benefit.

Fighting the fifteenth wolf or bandit that day isn't fun. Getting sent through a painting to rescue a painter from his creation is, and so is the first time you have an all out battle between a magic user and a wisp..

If the game was smaller, the maps were decent and navigation was an active part of the game, I perhaps wouldn't have a problem with it. Usually, that's not the case.

To aim a specific criticism at Oblivion, one issue of navigation is that many of the hidden/unmarked areas aren't very unique. After the first fort or dungeon the rest are fairly similar and they respawn stupidly fast. I suppose that's more realistic than something new and exciting being round each corner, but it does tend to favour fast traval.

The problem is, when games have the quest compass, they suddenly no longer have useful maps. In Oblivion, you can't tell whether a mountain will block your path or not, by looking at a map. In Gothic 3, this makes the snow north a potential headache to travel in. Unsurprisingly, the quest compass is suddenly of no use whatsoever. It does do something though: it gives you a false sense of knowing-where-to-go, takes your attention away from the environment, and unnaturally and unnoticed decreases your chances of ever finding anything there.

(Fast travel is just fine, by all means use it. In fact, it's something I think should be an option in any game as big as Oblivion. In Gothic 3 you have teleports, which is the same thing. It's just that you can't use it when the location is a place you haven't found yet, which is as it should be.)

Alas, Oblivion, and modern RPGs in general, have a worse flaw than the infinitely stupid voodoo compass: the journal entries and "ding" sounds are immersion breaking and hand-holdy to the extreme. Truly absurd stuff. You would think these games are being made for little chimpanzees. For real. (Try to live without them, and you'll notice that the developers assumed you would read them, period. The people you talk to don't know anything, it's the journal entries that seem to know things.)

Then again, the games are usually so buggy and pieces of shit in general that the developers probably just can't make intelligent games with the engines and toolsets they're using: hand-holding becomes necessary, because otherwise you won't survive your trip through the dangerous swamp of bugs and frail scripts that is the game. When 95% of the choices you might make (if you were allowed to think for yourself) will break the quest, hand-holding becomes the ONLY alternative.

(Piranha Bytes has been a brave innovator here as well, and I say this without irony. In their last two games, for example, the journal simply records the relevant bits of dialogue, and that's it. It has to be an improvement, if you consider that in other games the journal records the main character's ready-made conclusions ("Ah, so that means I'll have to do this and that").)

 

[syllopsium]

OK, I can agree with most of that. Fast travel in Oblivion doesn't work for any of the non major locations you've not visited yet, so it's not too different than Gothic 3 (which I still have in shrinkwrap along with 1&2, awaiting the finish of other games and ideally Nvidia fixing their drivers so I can play 1&2 in Windows 7 rather than Vista/XP).

The journal I rarely read as it is idiotic - I tend to refer to the quest list and only to the journal if I really must. The 'ding'/drumroll I can live with a little more, as otherwise it might take a while to realise that an unexpected quest has been added - although it'd probably still be better with an unobtrusive visual notification.

The point about bugs is an interesting one. Whilst in theory we'd all like watertight, inventive content I suspect the reality is that more content which copes with the majority of situations would win out.

I don't think Oblivion is really a piece of shit - clearly it has flaws, but it also has such decent content, especially including a whole boatload of inventive quests, that I'm inclined to cut it a lot of slack (even when the quest goes 'surprise! We've put in a novel twist. Now to resolve the twist, go and kill something in a dungeon like 80% of the rest of the quests')

I wouldn't call myself a graphics whore either, but it does help. Bits of Oblivion are staggeringly pretty, and IIRC in BG2 the 'mushrooms' in the dungeon before the Drow city livened up an otherwise boring dungeon no end.

Now googling Piranha Bytes.. (edit : ah. Gothic. Already covered that (see above). Tempted by Risen, but why buy when I have so many others to play)

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Now googling Piranha Bytes.. (edit : ah. Gothic. Already covered that (see above). Tempted by Risen, but why buy when I have so many others to play)

If you want the best possible experience out of the best game in the series, I would say: start with it, that is, start with Gothic 2 with the Night of the Raven addon installed. No walkthroughs, no asking for help at forums.

Hopefully it'll work without graphical glitches. Nvidia people have had problems with it on XP as well.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Clarification: I've been writing about the "quest compass", but the arrow that shows the player position in real-time is just as dumb and intruding, and it's a concept that's interchangeable with "quest compass" as far as my criticisms of it are concerned. (It doesn't make much of a difference whether you can check where you are and where the quest location is by looking at your very helpful magic map, or whether there's an arrow pointing at the quest location that isn't your player arrow.)

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

The passive female. Everything has to happen "by itself."

Tsk. That's hardly fair. I had imagined by my tone that I had conveyed my distaste for this kind of gamelength reliance. If I began a singular quest to eliminate it, that wouldn't be brave, it would be quixotic. I do try to make every moment of game time memorable, and ZRPG will be exactly as long as we feel it needs to be to make a fun game, and not because someone's breathing down our necks about it - but shitting in other developer's soups for purposefully making longer games is hardly productive.

The current contention in this matter seems to be one that boils down to a difference of opinion - are these long games good or not, etc. That's never going to be a winnable argument. Entertaining, sure, but winnable, not hardly. I myself was not as much a fan of the flavor of "NO UI! NOT EVER! MORE REALISTIC!" game design that was going around a few years ago, but I understood its allure. I don't think it's hard to imagine that some people really do just want to sink a shitload of time into something they find halfway entertaining, even if a better experience can be found in a shorter game.

But anyhow. Games that are long for longness' sake? BOO. Baldur's Gate 2 making a difference in the game industry? YES. Annie passive? FUCK NO. That's my take on the matter. :twisted:

 

[Luzur]

you are never passive in my dreams, Annie.

well now that we got that out of our systems, any plans what you will do after ZRPG? secret hints of a Baldur's Gate killer? Daggerfall 2?

 

[syllopsium]

The current contention in this matter seems to be one that boils down to a difference of opinion - are these long games good or not, etc. That's never going to be a winnable argument. Entertaining, sure, but winnable, not hardly.

Surely the argument is not whether these long games are good or not, because clearly they are. BG2 merits the tag of an excellent game, even if it gains that through throwing in the kitchen sink rather than anything else.

The questions are, as you mention, whether a shorter game can be as (if not more) rewarding than a longer game, how short 'short' is and if it would be worth designing a game specifically to match a number of hours and see if it worked.