RPG Dot 2003: The biggest disappointment

[Vault Dweller]

And the winner is <a href=http://lionheart.blackisle.com><b>Lionheart</b></a>, the last PC game bearing the Black Isle name. Well, can't argue with that. Here is a snipet from the <a href=http://www.rpgdot.com/index.php?hsaction=10053&ID=845>official page</a>

<blockquote>The game starts out quite nice anyway, with a large city ( Barcelona ) full of quests and stories. But after that, Lionheart becomes a simple hack'n'slash feast. Little to no story anymore, and, what was accepted due to story and gameplay in Barcelona now became an annoyance as well: Not up-to-date graphics and other technical flaws..
Overall, it seems, that Lionheart could have well used another 6 months in development to make it a classic like Baldur's Gate 2. But then again, in 2004 everybody would have slain it for its aged graphics.</blockquote>
I don't think that even another year would have made Lionheart a better game. It wasn't an underdeveloped game, it was poorly designed game, but that's an entirely different story

Btw, one of the runners up was <a href=http://www.troikagames.com/toee.htm><b>ToEE</b></a>, here is what they had to say about it:

<blockquote>I know some people were dissappointed with Temple despite (or even because of) the great combat system. I read some of the most negative reviews declaring it to be an 'elitist' game that you needed to know the rules of D&D inside out to play. I read how it had less story than Diablo 1 (um. No.). I read how much the quests sucked (they did).
I experienced some of the more annoying bugs personally. All of this adds up to place Temple firmly into second biggest dissappointment of the year. I admit, I was a little disheartened myself by the lack of story until I decided to put aside my prejudices against heavy combat games and enjoy it for what it was. </blockquote>
Now I do agree that non-Temple quests sucked, and that was Troika's biggest mistake, as we all know that the majority of reviewers never play games for more then 30 minutes (which also explains many positive Lionheart reviews), but I think that the quests are bad because I've seen better: Fallout, Arcanum, Prelude, Geneforge, etc. So my question is why the morons who usually play adventure games masked as RPGs complain about ToEE quests? Mystary!

 

[Killzig]

I had no hope for lionheart so ToEE was probably my biggest disappointment of the year. Though really this entire year has been a disappoint for RPGs.

 

[Sol Invictus]

ToEE really dissapointed me in terms of the quests, NPC interaction and in the length of the game. I just wasn't very long and I wish there was more of it. More interesting areas, at least. There's only so much enjoyment you can get out of killing random bandits in dungeons.

What I would have liked in ToEE was to have more interactive environments, with ropes, pullies, trap doors and all the kinds of things that you would find in a Pen and Paper game allowing you not only to fight, but to fight intelligently by utilizing your surroundings to gain an advantage over the DM's horde of goons. In the future, I would like to see an RPG that made use of such interactive environments and my gut tells me that Vampire: Bloodlines will be the first game to do that for me.

 

[Volourn]

Yeah. TOEE isd efinitely adissapoint. Combat, and itemc reation aside it just didn't have the Troika touch ala Arcanum. LH is a bigger oen though as I was looking forward to it; and after the demo I decided not to buy it AT ALL. Hmm..

 

[Transcendent One]

I also find it rather amusing how certain games (won't name them) get labelled as revolutionary for having glorified Fedex quests, when ToEE indeed uses basically the same quest structures and is bashed for that.

What really annoyed me about ToEE quests is how they seem to want to make the player run around as much as possible, and it does get pretty tiresome.

And Lionheart was just...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

2003 was probably one of the most disappointing years for CRPGs I can remember. Golden Land wasn't released in the 'States yet. Paradise Cracked didn't seem that great to me as it originally sounded - I lost interest before it was released. Lionheart didn't come off very well. ToEE was fairly flawed in several aspects, though surprised me in others(I dig the hell out of COMMAND UNDEAD) - I still would have liked more towny stuff and quests that didn't seem to take a half an hour to finish just because they make you run everywhere on the map. Blades of Avernum isn't out yet. And the list goes on.

 

[Vault Dweller]

What I would have liked in ToEE was to have more interactive environments, with ropes, pullies, trap doors and all the kinds of things that you would find in a Pen and Paper game allowing you not only to fight, but to fight intelligently by utilizing your surroundings to gain an advantage over the DM's horde of goons.

That would be definitely great. I wouldn't mind to play a game set inside a huge dungeon or a maze-like construct filled with traps, passages, pullies, ropes, and "all the kind of things" that makes dungeons fun to explore, cause lately dungeon=boring sets of rooms that serve no logical purpose but to contain loot and monsters, and that just sucks.

I also find it rather amusing how certain games (won't name them) get labelled as revolutionary for having glorified Fedex quests, when ToEE indeed uses basically the same quest structures and is bashed for that.

My sentiments exactly

 

[Vault Dweller]

2003 was probably one of the most disappointing years for CRPGs I can remember. <snip> And the list goes on.

Speaking of the list, any news on Prelude's expansion or a sequel? They said in May that expansion was in the works:

There's plans for a sequel. And an expansion is kind of in the works first

There's 3(!) expansions that have been planned pretty much from the get-go.
one is a advanced sort of dungeon crawl that involves the misty stairs, the ancients, and resolving some loose ends of the main story. It also involves the bingoes...
One leads across the mountains to the the east and is probably the largest with the new magic system fo the VanGesh and a large, intricate city on par with the barrier or the citadel
and one explores the nature of the subterranean cavern dwellers and their society...

A lot of the content in the expansions will be added to the base game (more advanced actions from skills, new spells, monsters, ai, some NPC's etc...) and freely available.

 

[thathmew]

I didn't play any RPG of 2003 for more than five hours. Nothing grabbed me, even TOEE despite the excellent combat; but then I dislike D&D's system. Haven't tried KOTOR yet, but given that I just don't like BIO's style I don't have much hope. The only RPG I've played all year has pretty much been ADOM. Of course most of my free time is taken up by Prelude and poker, which doesn't leave much for games and ADOM runs nicely in a window while I wait for hands...

No word yet on the expansion or sequal. My times been swamped by my work at Tilted Mill. I'm still working on Prelude, but it's slow going now. At this point I'm working on porting everything to a new, more stable and capable graphics engine. Didn't help that I lost Zero Sum email access for 3 months and my primary development computer got stolen at one point. Things look to settle down here for a while in the spring and I'm hoping to get together with CP and get some serious Zero Sum work done.

Fingers crossed.
-m

 

[Anonymous]

All the quests and dialog and everything which 'sucked' about ToEE seemed normal to me because that's just exactly how they are in D&D games. When Troika said they were making it exactly like a D&D game, they wernt kidding, but the fault in that is 89% of the reviewers have probably never seen a D&D book in their life and couldnt grasp that.

ToEE was excellent for me and I keep playing it over and over and over, because it IS a perfect example of a D&D game. Even if in the realm of cRPG it seems lacking, it's the best D&D cRPG. NeverWinter Nights definately isnt because the rules were done so shitty, and plus, 3.5's additions to the classes I cant play without, cRPG or PnP (Paladins and Rangers are MUCH better in 3.5, an example of this is in 3rd Edition, Paladins didnt ever gain anything new after 4th level, just a couple more Cure Diseases every now and then (for a total of 4 or 5))

Maybe it's just one of those D&D Player things, oh well. I enjoyed it, it was refreshing to see a game not totally bastardize the D&D play style. Maybe cRPGs just arnt ready to accept full PnP playstyles?

 

[Volourn]

Huh? I've been playing pnp dnd for over a decade; and I surely avoid dms who do the crap that was done in TEOE like the plague. Then again, your style of pnp is probably the "true pnp DnD.

 

[Anonymous]

Knowing you, you probably play with people who model their games after NWN. Probably in Forgotten Realms.

I play Greyhawk, so maybe that is why i'm used to this. Currently play The Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

 

[Volourn]

Hmm.. I've played in many worlds, and NONE of them are remeotely like NWN or TOEE. They both suck compared to pnp. Game over. I win, you lose.

 

[triCritical]

LlamaGod:

Volourn thinks the he equals everyone, but its pretty obvious from listening to him that he is a 3 sigma outliar. The fact is that most DnD players that I have known and that I have talked throughout the years play campaigns like you are playing now. I had a coworker who played Return to ToEE and meeting once every two weeks for a day it took them about a 1.5 years to complete.

Still considering that I have been to many DnD fora and have seen how the biggest discussions are how to uber your combat oriented class, I think its pretty fair to say that DnD is a combat oriented hack and slash system.

 

[Voss]

The system is combat oriented.
But that doesn't mean that all you have to do when you play is kill things and loot

PnP D&D games I've been in haven't been 'just kill things' (though there has been a fair amount of combat) in well...hmmm. Over 15 years. And thats spread over 7 places and about a dozen different groups.

Interaction, scheming, plotting, talking, planning. Even in the combat heavy campaigns (and I'm in one now) theres still a lot of other stuff to do.
In fact, the last session didn't have any combat at all. We were tying up loose ends and negotiation, and trying to figure out a way to sneak in the palace and get an audience with the local king.

And fetch quests have rarely been a part of any PnP experience.

 

[Volourn]

Voss wins.

 

[DemonKing]

ToEE was excellent for me and I keep playing it over and over and over, because it IS a perfect example of a D&D game. Even if in the realm of cRPG it seems lacking, it's the best D&D cRPG.

I think that TOEE is nowhere near the best D&D CRPG ever - but it was a decent copy of an ancient, over-hyped module.

Having Dmed TOEE in PnP I have to say that it is pretty lacking without a lot of work from the DM. My players had a pretty good time wandering in the NPC heavy areas like Hommlet and Nulb where they could role play a lot but they got a bit bored with the endless dungeoneering under the Temple.

When I think of my favourite D&D CRPGs there is a nice mix of dungeons, towns and wilderness areas. TOEE (the CRPG) was pretty limited in scope once you entered the Temple proper - just like the module. I guess the nodes might have been a nice surprise for some, but if you were familiar with the original than you knew what was coming.

 

[triCritical]

Interaction, scheming, plotting, talking, planning. Even in the combat heavy campaigns (and I'm in one now) theres still a lot of other stuff to do.
In fact, the last session didn't have any combat at all. We were tying up loose ends and negotiation, and trying to figure out a way to sneak in the palace and get an audience with the local king.

I think this is very common. I just don't know what to call it. Its not really ROELPLAYINGE, as some people call it. Its just kind of adventuring and figuring stuff out. Something that I think exist in both Return to/ and ToEE.

 

[Anonymous]

ToEE was excellent for me and I keep playing it over and over and over, because it IS a perfect example of a D&D game. Even if in the realm of cRPG it seems lacking, it's the best D&D cRPG.

I think that TOEE is nowhere near the best D&D CRPG ever - but it was a decent copy of an ancient, over-hyped module.

Having Dmed TOEE in PnP I have to say that it is pretty lacking without a lot of work from the DM. My players had a pretty good time wandering in the NPC heavy areas like Hommlet and Nulb where they could role play a lot but they got a bit bored with the endless dungeoneering under the Temple.

When I think of my favourite D&D CRPGs there is a nice mix of dungeons, towns and wilderness areas. TOEE (the CRPG) was pretty limited in scope once you entered the Temple proper - just like the module. I guess the nodes might have been a nice surprise for some, but if you were familiar with the original than you knew what was coming.

How is it not the best? It implemented the rules precise. If you're just gonna spin on about how it's story was lacking, remember it's Paper and Pen. If you add more story and remove more combat from PnP D&D, you're just reading a novel.

 

[taks]

i have to call a tie between lionheart and toee as biggest letdowns myself.

lionheart would have been a great intro to SPECIAL for me if they hadn't nerfed the magic system so badly. the first half was great and i was really, really, really, disappointed at how poorly they finished the game (i never actually finished completely, btw). i KNEW ahead of time that it would be combat heavy hack-n-slash and they STILL managed to disappoint me. arrrrggghh.

toee, otoh, was just plain released waaaay too early. it needed sooo much work and still, after a patch and all the co8 additions, it's still messed up in a lot of ways (some things, such as poor dialog and voice overs are pretty much unfixable). it does, however, contain a lot of things i hope future crpg makers learn from. combat is killer in spite of the rules nerfs (many of which were fixed with all the patching). graphics are really cool, too. i like the engine. lots of room for expansion if only they'd fix what they have first...

taks

 

[Zombra]

Bored at work. My two cents.

I thought that TOEE was an incredibly fun CRPG. I never even got that far into it because of the bugs. When I play CRPGs I try to take a PnP attitude and select out of the options available the closest fit to what my characters would "really do" based on the personalities I've thought out for them. I had a great time with this game and hope to go back to it and finish it some day when and if it ever works. (Not being able to dismiss an NPC without him attacking you to the death kind of ruins the immersion.)

Despite my approach to these games, I think it's ridiculous to compare pen & paper games to computer moderated ones. It's like saying Casablanca is a better movie than a hot fudge sundae, or that hot fudge sundaes taste better than Casablanca. I'm all in favor of more quest variety, but when you boil down RPGs of either type you have PCs interacting with other PCs, NPCs, objects, and locations. In a PnP game, PC interactions with one another are often the most interesting aspect, followed closely by PC <-> NPC interactions. In a computer game, there's only so much dialogue you can have before the game starts to bog down with reading text on a screen (*cough* Torment *cough*). And there's no way you can ever have the personality flexibility of PnP, even if you have 30 options at every point of a conversation tree. Conversely, in a PnP game the graphics suck and it's really hard to play for 20 minutes at 4 AM when you can't sleep.

OK, I kinda ran off the tracks there, but I'd better get back to work. TOEE is great, or would be if it worked.

 

[taks]

yeah, i have to agree with that sentiment zombra. there is no comparison.

taks

 

[DemonKing]

If you add more story and remove more combat from PnP D&D, you're just reading a novel.

Umm...we've played whole sessions of PnP where no one "threw a d20 in anger" - just straight role-playing (no combat). It was nothing like a novel - unless you define a novel as 6 people collaborating together in free-form verbal storytelling.

 

[Anonymous]

Wow. That sounds boring. Wernt you going on earlier about PS:T.. saying 'I wanna play a game, not read a book' or something.. yeah...


And I do think you can dismiss NPCs without combat, did you try right clicking on them and then choosing Talk? And then doing the whole 'Go away.' thing..

 

[Volourn]

I have to kinda agree with Llama with that. Just because you have no combat doesn't mean you are the coolest role-player around. In fact, in many situations, if you are role-playing your character properly, there should physical conflict. It's one of the things I dislike about more than a few NWN PWs. Some people think you can only role-play if you sit at a bench and talk for 5 hours. *yawn* Role-playing is acting in a way that your character would in various situations. Anyways, my 1cp.