Do you get annoyed at the state of RPGs?

[buru5]

buru5, I think you are misquoting me, since nothing of what you said is related to my post, it even strengthens it lol, apart from the D:OS and PoE bit. D:OS sold around 1 million copies iirc, PoE sold 500k and still going strong. I said there's a significant audience, not that they sell as much as Skyrim, reading comprehension much?

I disagree with the success = more money = shit games conclusion you were coming to. According to your logic niche games get shit on due to this process, but your example of Baldur's Gate 2 being a mainstream success implies that it was not a niche title. I'm suggesting that Bioware moved on from these types of games because, while they sold well, they didn't sell as well as the competition so they decided to go down a more story focused and less complex path, the creation of Mass Effect being the point of no return imo.

The point I was trying to make is that there is an audience for everything, so pointing this out is irrelevant. The important factor is which has the larger audience, this is what developers will look at to determine what type of games to make. This is why the open world meme is so prevalent today, because games like Skyrim sold like crazy and that was one of the biggest selling points. Naturally John's next game should be an openworld game because of this. There are only so many groundbreaking gaming ideas we have these days, and these groundbreaking ideas are going to be copied ad nauseam.

 

[Kev Inkline]

 

[YES!]

Developers don't have to go bigger. But what incentive do that have to make real rpgs when they are attacked and belittle and have hate campaigns used against them like inXile? This isn't about developers wanting to go bigger, it is about a self destructive community who hates the genre they claim to like. Case in point - look at all the great rpg companies of old who closed not because they went bigger and started making shittier and shittier games. The made good games, as always, but their audience became hate mongering lunatics having hissy fits over nonsense.

InXile deserve hate though. BioWare are the typical example of a dev that got too big for its own good and started making shittier games. Interplay/Black Isle had massive financial difficulties by the time PS:T was released due to competition from consoles and poor sales of their latest games. Troika closed its doors because the management had zero business sense, squandered much of its budget for rewrites and do-overs, a "casual environment" and released bugged up the butt games that nobody bought at the time. Not to mention the huge competition with Half-life 2, Valve forced them to release Bloodlines the same day they released Half-life 2 due to the engine. They even patched Bloodlines for free. I.e. it's not because of a "vitriolic community" lol.

You are very wrong. If the community was more supportive of the games the claim to be fans of then more people would have bought Arcanum instead of pirating the leaked version. More people would of bought ToEE and instead of having furious hissy fits about some bugs and TB combat. And rpg fans would have bought Bloodlines instead of HL2, and the ones that did should have supported the game instead of having hissy fits.

Let me guess - inXile deserves hate for making actual rpgs? Damn them! And you fail to explain why all the other major rpg developers closed shop before Troika. All fluke incidents blamed on no business sense? By no business sense you must mean being stupid enough to make rpgs instead of monkey fodder shit rpg-lite games for idiots and console monkeys? I lived through this. Your revisionist history is poppycock.

 

[YES!]

Developers don't have to go bigger.

Which is what every developers aims, though.

But what incentive do that have to make real rpgs when they are attacked and belittle and have hate campaigns used against them like inXile?

So are you saying that after a developer says "fuck you" to you, you should just go back to suck their cock?

Exept inXile which aimed to go smaller, and Obsidian, and SSI and Sir Tek and Troika, etc, etc, etc.

I am saying so called rpg fans should support rpgs instead of being fucking retarded drama queens having hissy fits over nothing and shooting real rpg fans in the foot.

 

[Lacrymas]

buru5, well, haven't niche games been shat on for a while now? The spending of more money on development is not the sole reason, but it's a big one. And the logic is the other way around most of the time. Companies like BioWare don't magically start making more mainstream games because they sell better, they start to NEED the games to sell better. I'm using BioWare as an example because it's easy to track their work and draw conclusions from it. They have a third person shooter "series' - MDK. Their first release for console was MDK2, which was enormously successful, BUT after its success they decided to go and make ...BG2. Therefore they wanted to make BG2, despite its more niche appeal. However, both MDK2 and BG2's success wasn't enough to stabilize Interplay in the financial department, so after Bioware "broke" with Interplay Bioware had to create games which sold well, which led to Kotor 1 and Jade Empire. Console "RPGs". Then they got bought by EA. So, the relationship between money and dumbing down is a bit more complicated than "studios are greedy and want that console dollas", at least for some studios.

You are very wrong. If the community was more supportive of the games the claim to be fans of then more people would have bought Arcanum instead of pirating the leaked version. More people would of bought ToEE and instead of having furious hissy fits about some bugs and TB combat. And rpg fans would have bought Bloodlines instead of HL2, and the ones that did should have supported the game instead of having hissy fits.

Let me guess - inXile deserves hate for making actual rpgs? Damn them! And you fail to explain why all the other major rpg developers closed shop before Troika. All fluke incidents blamed on no business sense? By no business sense you must mean being stupid enough to make rpgs instead of monkey fodder shit rpg-lite games for idiots and console monkeys? I lived through this. Your revisionist history is poppycock.

Yeah, fans aren't obliged to have unconditional love for developers when they start releasing bugged and almost unplayable games. Bloodlines is not an RPG, but it had no PR either, Valve forbade them to announce it before Half-life 2. It also had competition from MGS3 and Halo 2. InXile deserve hate for too many broken Kickstarter promises and making SHIT RPGs. I mentioned many things besides the no business sense thing, so no reason to get into that. ToEE and Arcanum made 5ish and 9ish million dollars respectively (Bloodlines was around 3ish), so it's not true that "fans didn't buy them", at least not in Arcanum's case. Like I said, Troika had different problems.

 

[YES!]

buru5, well, haven't niche games been shat on for a while now? The spending of more money on development is not the sole reason, but it's a big one. And the logic is the other way around most of the time. Companies like BioWare don't magically start making more mainstream games because they sell better, they start to NEED the games to sell better. I'm using BioWare as an example because it's easy to track their work and draw conclusions from it. They have a third person shooter "series' - MDK. Their first release for console was MDK2, which was enormously successful, BUT after its success they decided to go and make ...BG2. Therefore they wanted to make it, despite its more niche appeal. However, both MDK2 and BG2's success wasn't enough stabilize Interplay in the financial department, so after "breaking" with them they had to create games which sold well, which led to Kotor 1 and Jade Empire. Console "RPGs". Then they got bought by EA. So, the relationship between money and dumbing down is a bit more complicated than "studios are greedy and want that console dollas", at least for some studios.

You are very wrong. If the community was more supportive of the games the claim to be fans of then more people would have bought Arcanum instead of pirating the leaked version. More people would of bought ToEE and instead of having furious hissy fits about some bugs and TB combat. And rpg fans would have bought Bloodlines instead of HL2, and the ones that did should have supported the game instead of having hissy fits.

Let me guess - inXile deserves hate for making actual rpgs? Damn them! And you fail to explain why all the other major rpg developers closed shop before Troika. All fluke incidents blamed on no business sense? By no business sense you must mean being stupid enough to make rpgs instead of monkey fodder shit rpg-lite games for idiots and console monkeys? I lived through this. Your revisionist history is poppycock.

Yeah, fans aren't obliged to have unconditional love for developers when they start releasing bugged and almost unplayable games. Bloodlines is not an RPG, but it had no PR either, Valve forbade them to announce it before Half-life 2. It also had competition from MGS3 and Halo 2. InXile deserve hate for too many broken Kickstarter promises and making SHIT RPGs. I mentioned many things besides the no business sense thing, so no reason to get into that.

How old are you? Obviously fans don't have to do anything and this is obvious to even retarded people, but it is hard to claim you are fan of something you don't support. Your statements make no sense and are just nonsense. What are good rpgs if inXile makes shit rpgs (starting with the kickstarter phase of inXile)?

 

[Lacrymas]

Old enough to see that this is not a one-way street, with "the fans" being the sole problem.

 

[Raghar]

I'd ask you to look at sales of Final Fantasy 7 and compare them to Baldur's Gate 2 (both of which came out relatively close together) then reread your post. Yes, they're different platforms, but I think this factors into the "dumbed down" point as well, since consoles are dumbed down PCs and obviously "gamers" prefer consoles according to sales data.

Final Fantasy 7 sold about 10 million copies on PlayStation alone, whereas Baldur's Gate 2 sold a little over 2 million units. Still good figures, but not anywehre near the sales of Final Fantasy 7 which is a dumbed down as fuck RPG.

This is very unhealthy obsession with sales figures. For PC, 2 million units for BG I was massive success. First game in the series, and it's just licenced stuff. (BTW how many PC could run BG? And how many PS were out at release?)

In FF VII there were interesting moments like:
Scientist: Now we put both specimen together and would observe theirs mating.
Four legged specimen: I don't want to do that. I'm not pervert.
Scientist: Specimen is uncooperative.

In what other game a non villain character tries to force a woman and a panther to mate?
You could do chocobo racing.
And aside of main character being wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeny bitch, majority of other characters were memorable.
Now, it came after very decent FF VI, and it was first FF game in 3D.
And story wasn't cuckoo like FF XIII story.

 

[Viata]

Developers don't have to go bigger.

Which is what every developers aims, though.

But what incentive do that have to make real rpgs when they are attacked and belittle and have hate campaigns used against them like inXile?

So are you saying that after a developer says "fuck you" to you, you should just go back to suck their cock?

Exept inXile which aimed to go smaller, and Obsidian, and SSI and Sir Tek and Troika, etc, etc, etc.

I think our definition of smaller is not the same. No way Obsidian is a small dev, for example.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Plenty of the "totally dumbed down" "not-an-RPG" RPGs are actually really good games, whether or not they meet some purist's personal definition for what an RPG is. Prey (2017) was phenomenal. Deus Ex was great last year, the ___Souls games games and their derivatives are well liked (although not my scene personally). Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Mass Effect Andromeda being awful has little or nothing to do with their status as an RPG or not-an-RPG.

Hardcore RPGs in the vein of Baldur's Gate II and Arcanum never had AAA budgets, ever. When they were "high budget" that was only by the standards of the late 90's / early 00's when overall budgets were much lower. Their market share did not expand along with industry standards for presentation, and so they died a natural death of demographics. The modern resurgence of low and mid budget games via kickstarter and digital distribution is probably the most anybody could ask for as far as this niche goes. The high budget mainstream experiences are getting made for everyone who wants them, while the isometric games and eurojank are getting made for you.

 

[Viata]

Hardcore RPGs in the vein of Baldur's Gate II

 

[YES!]

Developers don't have to go bigger.

Which is what every developers aims, though.

But what incentive do that have to make real rpgs when they are attacked and belittle and have hate campaigns used against them like inXile?

So are you saying that after a developer says "fuck you" to you, you should just go back to suck their cock?

Exept inXile which aimed to go smaller, and Obsidian, and SSI and Sir Tek and Troika, etc, etc, etc.

I think our definition of smaller is not the same. No way Obsidian is a small dev, for example.

Obsidian went with making smaller games with less of a budget, such as PoE and Tyranny.

 

[YES!]

Plenty of the "totally dumbed down" "not-an-RPG" RPGs are actually really good games, whether or not they meet some purist's personal definition for what an RPG is. Prey (2017) was phenomenal. Deus Ex was great last year, the ___Souls games games and their derivatives are well liked (although not my scene personally). Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Mass Effect Andromeda being awful has little or nothing to do with their status as an RPG or not-an-RPG.

Hardcore RPGs in the vein of Baldur's Gate II and Arcanum never had AAA budgets, ever. When they were "high budget" that was only by the standards of the late 90's / early 00's when overall budgets were much lower. Their market share did not expand along with industry standards for presentation, and so they died a natural death of demographics. The modern resurgence of low and mid budget games via kickstarter and digital distribution is probably the most anybody could ask for as far as this niche goes. The high budget mainstream experiences are getting made for everyone who wants them, while the isometric games and eurojank are getting made for you.

BG2 is a hardcore rpg? In what way?

 

[Daemongar]

Eh, the day man moved beyond 1st Edition stats and skills, the decline began for me. While I can play newer games, I guess at the end of the day I feel more connected to even something lame like Ulitima 9 than Skyrim or whatever. I'd rather play Morrowind (or even Oblivion) than Skyrim. I just can't handle the loss of stats. While every game is looking to remove minutiae and the boring stuff, the greater whole suffers. That is to say, with earlier RPGs the devil was in the details. Yes, Buc-du-Corbin's were completely superfluous in Pools of Radiance, but having to cast Detect Magic on every pile of loot was not. Newer games would give you a ring of magic detection if not just identify the shit outright.

Think the decline revolves around CRPG designers who do not, or never have played table-top RPGs (and Pathfinder doesn't count). I can tell, it makes a difference in product. Trust me.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

BG2 is a hardcore rpg? In what way?

2nd Edition 6 character party RTwP isometric D&D RPGs are "casual" in comparison to Gary Grigsby's War in the East: Don to the Danube, sure. The best selling RPG franchises in the world are (in descending order) Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, The Elder Scrolls, and Diablo. Not counting MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Lineage. Baldur's Gate is very much on the hardcore end of the spectrum. Even Vampire is hardcore in comparison to what most people are playing.

 

[YES!]

BG2 is a hardcore rpg? In what way?

2nd Edition 6 character party RTwP isometric D&D RPGs are "casual" in comparison to Gary Grigsby's War in the East: Don to the Danube, sure. The best selling RPG franchises in the world are (in descending order) Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, The Elder Scrolls, and Diablo. Not counting MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Lineage. Baldur's Gate is very much on the hardcore end of the spectrum. Even Vampire is hardcore in comparison to what most people are playing.

Well, considering today's market I guess BG2, with almost zero chardev and insanely easy combat (without the mods that makes it still easy, but not insanely so) could be considered hardcore. But, also considering the crpg market, actual crpgs, it surely isn't still. It is far from it. How is Pokeman an rpg? Isn't that a card game? Card games are not and never will be rpgs. The rest is just console trash for people who play games and prefer kid's games with some rpg-lite elements due to age or low intelligence or dislike of hobbies requiring thought.

 

[Iznaliu]

It is like there was an apocalypse after that and we are now just rebuilding but with primitive tools.

If you look at the development of PoE, that is literally what happened.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Well, considering today's market I guess BG2, with almost zero chardev and insanely easy combat (without the mods that makes it still easy, but not insanely so) could be considered hardcore. But, also considering the crpg market, actual crpgs, it surely isn't still. It is far from it. How is Pokeman an rpg? Isn't that a card game? Card games are not and never will be rpgs. The rest is just console trash for people who play games and prefer kid's games with some rpg-lite elements due to age or low intelligence or dislike of hobbies requiring thought.

Hardly any RPG games have character development in the sense you are probably meaning it. "RPG" in videogames doesn't mean the same thing as "RPG" in a tabletop context. For videogames it's more about the mechanical systems involved, with the historical context being they were originally videogames that adapted combat mechanics and settings from tabletop games. The actual "role playing" was mostly lost in translation, but never-the-less the terminology has persisted through to the present and all of the heavily mutated descendants of these games.

Final Fantasy games typically have little or no player choice in anything other than combat and leveling, completely linear stories with fixed casts of characters, but they're what a huge percentage of the population thinks of when you say "RPG". As for Pokemon, no they're not card games. Well there is a card game but that's a spinoff from the main games. Despite being literally games for children they're more mechanically complex than Skyrim or Fallout 4 are. This isn't a high bar, but still.

 

[YES!]

Well, considering today's market I guess BG2, with almost zero chardev and insanely easy combat (without the mods that makes it still easy, but not insanely so) could be considered hardcore. But, also considering the crpg market, actual crpgs, it surely isn't still. It is far from it. How is Pokeman an rpg? Isn't that a card game? Card games are not and never will be rpgs. The rest is just console trash for people who play games and prefer kid's games with some rpg-lite elements due to age or low intelligence or dislike of hobbies requiring thought.

Hardly any RPG games have character development in the sense you are probably meaning it. "RPG" in videogames doesn't mean the same thing as "RPG" in a tabletop context. For videogames it's more about the mechanical systems involved, with the historical context being they were originally videogames that adapted combat mechanics and settings from tabletop games. The actual "role playing" was mostly lost in translation, but never-the-less the terminology has persisted through to the present and all of the heavily mutated descendants of these games.

Final Fantasy games typically have little or no player choice in anything other than combat and leveling, completely linear stories with fixed casts of characters, but they're what a huge percentage of the population thinks of when you say "RPG". As for Pokemon, no they're not card games. Well there is a card game but that's a spinoff from the main games. Despite being literally games for children they're more mechanically complex than Skyrim or Fallout 4 are. This isn't a high bar, but still.

Of course I mean mechanical development. The only why I can develop my character's personality is by first creating a character (or characters) and second being presented with situations in which I can decide how this character reacts in the given situation. Games that do this well are usually shit on by this community. Such as keeping the little girl in your party in T:ToN even though it hurts you mechanically. There are millions of examples of varying degrees, but people would rather have the reward dictate their action so we get light side points and dark side points or their equivalent. I really like when doing the good thing has a steep price to pay. But people usually whine about this. And since a game, more than anything, should be fun and when created for adults should have complexity and plenty of opportunity costs by way of significant and meaningful character mechanical development choices we can at least hope for this as a minimum. BG2, to me, is no different than DA:O or KotORs, just an ridiculously easy game with no thinking required for people who like both. It isn't and never will be anything close to the hardcore side of crpgs. I already agreed with you it could be hardcore when considering the video game market in general. But this site is supposed to be for people that actually like rpgs and not a general gaming site, even though this thread gives truth to that misconception. I don't understand it. I would never even consider posting on a site supposedly about a genre I don't even like. It makes no sense at all.

 

[YES!]

Old enough to see that this is not a one-way street, with "the fans" being the sole problem.

So a child, right? A tall child, maybe in your early 20s if that?

 

[Doktor Best]

Well, considering today's market I guess BG2, with almost zero chardev and insanely easy combat (without the mods that makes it still easy, but not insanely so) could be considered hardcore. But, also considering the crpg market, actual crpgs, it surely isn't still. It is far from it. How is Pokeman an rpg? Isn't that a card game? Card games are not and never will be rpgs. The rest is just console trash for people who play games and prefer kid's games with some rpg-lite elements due to age or low intelligence or dislike of hobbies requiring thought.

Hardly any RPG games have character development in the sense you are probably meaning it. "RPG" in videogames doesn't mean the same thing as "RPG" in a tabletop context. For videogames it's more about the mechanical systems involved, with the historical context being they were originally videogames that adapted combat mechanics and settings from tabletop games. The actual "role playing" was mostly lost in translation, but never-the-less the terminology has persisted through to the present and all of the heavily mutated descendants of these games.

Final Fantasy games typically have little or no player choice in anything other than combat and leveling, completely linear stories with fixed casts of characters, but they're what a huge percentage of the population thinks of when you say "RPG". As for Pokemon, no they're not card games. Well there is a card game but that's a spinoff from the main games. Despite being literally games for children they're more mechanically complex than Skyrim or Fallout 4 are. This isn't a high bar, but still.

The only why I can develop my character's personality is by first creating a character (or characters) and second being presented with situations in which I can decide how this character reacts in the given situation. Such as keeping the little girl in your party in T:ToN even though it hurts you mechanically. There are millions of examples of varying degrees, but people would rather have the reward dictate their action so we get light side points and dark side points or their equivalent. I really like when doing the good thing has a steep price to pay. But people usually whine about this. And since a game, more than anything, should be fun and when created for adults should have complexity and plenty of opportunity costs by way of significant and meaningful character mechanical development choices we can at least hope for this as a minimum.

Ill give you a partial brofist for this segment. Although i really dont get why youre shitting on Baldurs Gate 2 in the very next sentence since the difficulty can vary extremely based on what companions you take with you. So your example of taking a weaker character as a burden in your group in order to experience the game in a way that looks more interesting to you is very much emphasized in Baldurs Gate 2.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

: The thread

 

[ore clover]

As far as I'm concerned the entire industry's earned another crash, but I try not to let it bother me too much. I just spend my free time playing all the old titles I never picked up (or didn't exist yet when they released) instead.

 

[Falksi]

I think what's most annoying is how games are getting praised for offering things which they actually do poorly.
Skyrim is as shallow as they come, yet it was praised for depth on release simply because of it's size. The Witcher 3 is essentially a sandbox game with great writing, and it's open world contains very little worth exploring for, and for me actually hinders the pace of the story & quests massively. If anything it's how not to structure a story driven game, yet it's being hailed by many as the best example of how to structure a story driven game.

 

[buru5]

As far as I'm concerned the entire industry's earned another crash, but I try not to let it bother me too much. I just spend my free time playing all the old titles I never picked up (or didn't exist yet when they released) instead.

I don't see another crash coming ever outside of a nuclear holocaust. Games are reaching more people and have a larger demographic than ever before, especially larger than during the original video game crash. Games are a global phenomenon now, on par with cinema and music. It's not simply going to die off. Not that you were saying it was going to happen, just my opinion.