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What crpg has the best exploration aspect?

Darth Canoli

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My notebook could certify that the Lurking games certainly offered me the best trip and exploration-related mechanisms from the recent games I've played. With the number of interconnected problems you're constantly and actively solving (be ready to take notes and type keywords, that's a big part of the meat of the games and the reasons why they are so good, if you don't like this then you probably won't like the games), the number of hints you're constantly trying to decipher and with always one more secret to discover, one more song to learn from a teacher, you really have no time to get bored during the long ride that their big worlds offer. The worlds are fleshed-out, for example there are some optional quests you can't solve during any season because some plant needs to blossom or some animal needs to be there.

I played one for a very short time but i can't get over the graphics and the UI.

I played zorbus a bit last year and it was fine (graphics and UI wise).
Also dungeon of chaos which has an interesting UI and some degrees of custom AI but unfortunately, it's lacking in the exploration area, it's too big and too empty and there is absolutely no encounter design which makes combat boring if not painful after a while, even with the (lacking) customed AI.

A mixed breed between Dungeon of Chaos and Lurking with a good combat/encounter design would probably be a commercial success.
 
Last edited:

CryptRat

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3,548
Hmm...does it also have Ultima III level combat and hipster retro pixelation?
I'm not an expert of Ultima series at all, but in Lurking II (no idea about the first one because I played an old version, and changes were made since then) battles take place directly on the world map, and you can switch to combat at will which means when the monsters are already close, you can also avoid combat by running generally taking some hits from arrows which is useful when you're already high level and a battle is not worth it, and with the strongest damage spell which damage all close enemies over time a strong enough character will even kill the weak monsters while walking ; I would not call combat good but it's not annoyingly bad either nor wastes your time too much, boss fights are fun enough although' there are not many such fights.

About the look of the game even if it's obviously inspired by Ultima I think I personally prefer when character are visible sideway rather than from a front view. For the rest they used Ultima (5, I think) tileset at first but progressively switched to their own, now they have plenty of different big trees and such, and the best part of the look is how seasons alternate the full flaura. Note that for example equipment is also visible on characters.

Note that there's something to specifically say about these games, because these are not the only recent games which look a bit cheap, but what's very different about these games is the (small) development time and the (big) scope. Lurking II was released only something like two years after the first one, and the only games which compare in scope took 5 times that much time to make, when development even get to something. Some games made by very big teams are probably developed in a similar time frame, I guess, I don't really know to be fair, but anyway there's absolutely no way a big team would make a game which focuses on the kind of gameplay these games focus on so there's no comparison to be made. A total lack of handholding is a prequisite for such a game, there would not be any reason to play the games otherwise, and heavy handholding is obviously a common feature to all high profile games. Many recent games, regardless of whether they look good more minimalist, are simple, short, take 10 years to develop if they get finished at all, these games are actually one good example of how you can still make a big complex game on a budget and not retarded long time. There's obviously no reason why it would not be possible anymore but the reality is that Origins and SSI used to release ten times more RPGs than what anybody would do these days, which limit choices. I want to play Might&Magic clones, I want to play Quest for glory clones, I want to play Pools of Radiance clones, I want to play Realms of Arkania clones, I want to play Wasteland 1 clones, and I don't care much about what they look like (if all games looked like Lands of Lore or Icewind Dale that would be great but you can't be chooser if you like types of gameplay that nobody else does, and I also like tile-based games and tend to dislike 3D so it's even worse since I also prefer looks which most people don't, ultimately I have no major problem with the look of Lurking games). Big studios make none of these or one at all in a decade if you put all these studios together, and small studios, when they manage to put things together, either make some one shot great game needing 10 years to develop or make smaller scope games, due or not due to higher production values, it depends. For small studios like for big ones there's something to say about high production values preventing complex features or limiting content, technical limitation if for any reason you think you need some level of production value is a thing in my opinion. However the problem of many games which look cheap is that they are also cheap, mechanically and regarding the amount of unique content, just as much as games whose look is more involved, they feel like cheap erzast just the same. The thing is that I'm all for games which look cheap as long as they are complex, and Lurking games don't feel like cheap ersatz at all to me, they clearly focused on what they do best, combat is really not specially deep for example, but they totally delivered a big, intricate world which compares with the best. Their gameplay loop, basically open-world exploration and keyboard-based conversations, for a big part, is really not to everyone's taste, the games are as niche as it can get, but they delivered. None of the other recent games I've played which look like Ultima were half as good and I highly doubt any of the to be released ones will be.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
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at a Nowhere near you
About the look of the game even if it's obviously inspired by Ultima I think I personally prefer when character are visible sideway rather than from a front view. For the rest they used Ultima (5, I think) tileset at first but progressively switched to their own, now they have plenty of different big trees and such
I think, look-wise the closest thing to L2 is Magic Candle 2.
 

barghwata

Savant
Joined
Sep 13, 2019
Messages
504
Geneforge has excellent exploration, it starts with your character crash landing on an unknown island that was once used for dangerous experiments and was closed off once things gone wrong, you're given no information or guidance and you're left to explore it and learn about its lore and inhabitants all by yourself, the world is completely open and you have to find a way out of the island by youself which involves alot of investigation and hunting for clues, and you're given several choices on how to do that.

If only the combat and the encounter design were as good as the exploration, not to mention the garbage graphics and UI .... it could've been one of the best rpgs of all time, still holding on to the hope that some of those issues will be fixed in the upcoming remake.
 

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