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Innovation in RPG genre

Should RPG designers innovate in their games?


  • Total voters
    50

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
14,469
Location
Frostfell
At this point i am beginning to hate the table top games because they hold the genre back.

Definitively not truth. On late 80s and 90s, TT CRPG adaptations was extremely common and was the golden age of RPG's. After the devs decided to ignore the root origin of RPGs, we got abominations like DA2, DA:I, Diablo 3, Faggout 4, ArcaniA and etc. Anhd the unique decent RPG's that we got recently are or TT clones like Kingmaker or heavily inspired by old school RPG's like UnderRail.
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
12,870
Location
Eastern block
Video game art was never worse.

You know what I miss the most?

Good old interface design.

So much soul, so much detail.

00014447.jpg




ScrS_Backpack.PNG


5f74d995ac62b.jpg



3349accacadb3c07eb37d035a9ff4e6c.jpg



sextuplets.jpg



Yup. Nowadays it's all sterile crap.
 
Last edited:

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
At this point i am beginning to hate the table top games because they hold the genre back.

Definitively not truth. On late 80s and 90s, TT CRPG adaptations was extremely common and was the golden age of RPG's. After the devs decided to ignore the root origin of RPGs, we got abominations like DA2, DA:I, Diablo 3, Faggout 4, ArcaniA and etc. Anhd the unique decent RPG's that we got recently are or TT clones like Kingmaker or heavily inspired by old school RPG's like UnderRail.
Not rally,there was not a golden age of rpgs. It was the golden age of computers,then the bubble burst and many companies got under. In the next decades technology advanced and more divers genres became top and companies invested in them because they were dumb and easy to play. RPG was always niche and had more or less the same market numbers. After all playing RPGs needs at least a modicum of intelligence and technical and math knowledge.

That aside,the market and the genre is stagnated,if they listen to people like you it will die for sure. For there to be good rpgs there is a need for a powerful carry millions of sales games. Something to stimulate devs to try their luck. Like it or not,that is how things work. Underrail isn't good because it is tb or because of the combat,even if it is a level above most tbs. It was because of the interesting setting and good/decent writing,same with atom. Kingmaker is not a tb game,most of the regulars are really butthurt about it. It would have been tedious garbage if it as tb. The game is like 80 hours long,in tb it would have been like 200 long lol.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
So much soul, so much detail.
LoL the last thing you could tell about french book of spells is that it have good UI design. It is just archaic and simply bad,it is easily the worst thing about the game. Clicking the arrow 100 times to find a certain item that you might need in this situation is not fun at all.
 
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
6,704
Location
Mouse Utopia
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
Content is what makes an RPG, game mechanic systems are just auxiliary as a way to flesh out the exploration (ie systems boost the exploration/immersion by the making sword you found actually useful)
 

bandersnatch

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Dec 27, 2020
Messages
118
The main technical reason that interfaces are going to continue to be flat and bland in RPGs compared to the old days is that they are now high resolution textures mapped on 3D polygons that need to scale.

They are no longer fixed size pixel art like the old interfaces. There are pros and cons with both. The old interfaces with pixel art can't scale up easily to different monitor resolutions without really breaking the pixel aspect ratio. This is why all new games interfaces will basically behave like flat vector art that can scale up/down easier. You could potentially do a modern game interface with pixel art and map it on textures, but it would be a total pain in the ass and you couldn't freely scale between monitor resolutions without breaking the aspect ratios of the pixels. You can't really display a fraction of a pixel clearly when it comes to pixel art and you can't just anti-alias the hell out if it without getting a fuzzy look. This is why pixel art interfaces look so nice and crispy on the old games that we love.

You are always giving up something when you adopt the "new" way of things. This is just one of those areas for RPGs.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
The main technical reason that interfaces are going to continue to be flat and bland in RPGs compared to the old days is that they are now high resolution textures mapped on 3D polygons that need to scale.

They are no longer fixed size pixel art like the old interfaces. There are pros and cons with both. The old interfaces with pixel art can't scale up easily to different monitor resolutions without really breaking the pixel aspect ratio. This is why all new games interfaces will basically behave like flat vector art that can scale up/down easier. You could potentially do a modern game interface with pixel art and map it on textures, but it would be a total pain in the ass and you couldn't freely scale between monitor resolutions without breaking the aspect ratios of the pixels. You can't really display a fraction of a pixel clearly when it comes to pixel art and you can't just anti-alias the hell out if it without getting a fuzzy look. This is why pixel art interfaces look so nice and crispy on the old games that we love.

You are always giving up something when you adopt the "new" way of things. This is just one of those areas for RPGs.
Where ?
o0xO7T3.png


A good pixel art is good pixel art lol. It could be done,but modern devs lack the skillz and are too lazy to do it.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Graverobber Foundation
Developer
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
3,084
Location
デゼニランド
A good pixel art is good pixel art lol. It could be done,but modern devs lack the skillz and are too lazy to do it.
I think the problem is that in the older days the UI was designed once (or only had a handful of iterations) and you were expected to read the manual and learn how to play the game in case the UI isn't intuitive enough. That and the UI was usually designed for 480p with individual elements having a fixed size, taking less and less screen space in higher resolutions (or stretching the whole UI to fit the screen). In some cases some of these UIs were designed for a single resolution and thus the art team could go crazy with them (e.g. Amiga games).

Today, the UI can get redesigned dozens of times while being focus tested to death (since no one cares to RTFM anymore), not to mention there might be pressure to make it work and look the same on PC, consoles, and mobile platforms. By the time it's done, no one wants to bother with it, so going for something slick and simple starts looking like the best way to finish this part ASAP and focus on something else.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
A good pixel art is good pixel art lol. It could be done,but modern devs lack the skillz and are too lazy to do it.
I think the problem is that in the older days the UI was designed once (or only had a handful of iterations) and you were expected to read the manual and learn how to play the game in case the UI isn't intuitive enough. That and the UI was usually designed for 480p with individual elements having a fixed size, taking less and less screen space in higher resolutions (or stretching the whole UI to fit the screen). In some cases some of these UIs were designed for a single resolution and thus the art team could go crazy with them (e.g. Amiga games).

Today, the UI can get redesigned dozens of times while being focus tested to death (since no one cares to RTFM anymore), not to mention there might be pressure to make it work and look the same on PC, consoles, and mobile platforms. By the time it's done, no one wants to bother with it, so going for something slick and simple starts looking like the best way to finish this part ASAP and focus on something else.
I agree,still my point is valid. If they want to make it,they could.
 

bandersnatch

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Dec 27, 2020
Messages
118
Where ?
o0xO7T3.png


A good pixel art is good pixel art lol. It could be done,but modern devs lack the skillz and are too lazy to do it.

Have you tried playing that on non-conventional resolutions? Things will get ugly quick. I can already tell the text (numbers) are a bit fuzzy and not so crisp on that one. Can't you see that?
 

gurugeorge

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 3, 2019
Messages
7,437
Location
London, UK
Strap Yourselves In
The main technical reason that interfaces are going to continue to be flat and bland in RPGs compared to the old days is that they are now high resolution textures mapped on 3D polygons that need to scale.

They are no longer fixed size pixel art like the old interfaces. There are pros and cons with both. The old interfaces with pixel art can't scale up easily to different monitor resolutions without really breaking the pixel aspect ratio. This is why all new games interfaces will basically behave like flat vector art that can scale up/down easier. You could potentially do a modern game interface with pixel art and map it on textures, but it would be a total pain in the ass and you couldn't freely scale between monitor resolutions without breaking the aspect ratios of the pixels. You can't really display a fraction of a pixel clearly when it comes to pixel art and you can't just anti-alias the hell out if it without getting a fuzzy look. This is why pixel art interfaces look so nice and crispy on the old games that we love.

You are always giving up something when you adopt the "new" way of things. This is just one of those areas for RPGs.

But it's not like there's an infinite range of resolutions is it? Can't you just have the artists make however many dozen or so versions of the UI the game would need for all the resolutions there are?
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
It's a problem caused by screen acreage.

During Fallout 1/2 FTBOS time, default rez is 640x480 with sometime maybe 800600. Everything require a separate screen because you dont have enough space to jiggle two together.

In Arcanum time it change to1024768 as default rez. So they have enough to, maybe, squeeze two into one carefully.

800full-arcanum%3A-of-steamworks-%26-magick-obscura-screenshot.jpg

The mainscreen is character stat management with the lower part is item description screenand quick item/spell . Some thing impossible in the 1999s day because not enough acreage.

Check out Wasteland 2
520772443.jpg


You can obviously see the too big screen areage and so the waste.

Also, one big problem rise during this 19201080 era: People dare not making font too big, thus the words seem smaller in comparison.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Graverobber Foundation
Developer
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
3,084
Location
デゼニランド
The main technical reason that interfaces are going to continue to be flat and bland in RPGs compared to the old days is that they are now high resolution textures mapped on 3D polygons that need to scale.

They are no longer fixed size pixel art like the old interfaces. There are pros and cons with both. The old interfaces with pixel art can't scale up easily to different monitor resolutions without really breaking the pixel aspect ratio. This is why all new games interfaces will basically behave like flat vector art that can scale up/down easier. You could potentially do a modern game interface with pixel art and map it on textures, but it would be a total pain in the ass and you couldn't freely scale between monitor resolutions without breaking the aspect ratios of the pixels. You can't really display a fraction of a pixel clearly when it comes to pixel art and you can't just anti-alias the hell out if it without getting a fuzzy look. This is why pixel art interfaces look so nice and crispy on the old games that we love.

You are always giving up something when you adopt the "new" way of things. This is just one of those areas for RPGs.

But it's not like there's an infinite range of resolutions is it? Can't you just have the artists make however many dozen or so versions of the UI the game would need for all the resolutions there are?
It may sound reasonable on paper, but the number of resolutions out there keeps increasing, and artwork (and UI design) costs time and money. You'll probably spend months (and lots of $$$ that could be spent elsewhere) doing this, only to realize that your UI looks like shit a few years later because you're not a psychic. That, or wasting even more with every UI revision because you tried too hard to look fancy and didn't try hard enough to be practical. For the reference, here's a list of common resolutions.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
The best UI is the one that tells me what I want when I need it and otherwise gets out of my way. I find UIs like the arcanum one to be obtrusive and kinda garish.
 

Pink Eye

Monk
Patron
Joined
Oct 10, 2019
Messages
5,793
Location
Space Refrigerator
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Nowaday people have high threshold for art quality.

Video game art was never worse.

You know what I miss the most?

Good old interface design.

Interfaces used to look so good. Across all fucking genres.
Diablo, Fallout, Arcanum, Age of Empires... they all had such good-looking interfaces that looked to be part of the world, with elements of wood and marble and metal.
I agree. Freaking adored Ravenloft's Interfaces. In Strahd's Possession the interface would change depending on which dungeon you were currently in. I think my favorite one was the final Dungeon where you face Count Strahd. The UI was this night like theme:
i1Gk8rI.png

Church Theme was also great. If you were in the Church Dungeon, the UI was a wood like one:
ErvXRWv.png

There's a cool green stone theme for the UI if you were exploring the Count's castle:
mQJuFrD.png

Stone Prophet also had these UI theme subtleties as well - mostly egyptian inspired, but still very cool:
ApQCqu1.png

nAJ3JbQ.png

It's these attention to details that really added to the charm of the Ravenloft games.
 
Joined
May 31, 2018
Messages
2,509
Location
The Present
One thing I thin CRPGs need to do is bake metagame features into the game mechanics. You want quest markers? You need a high enough perception stat. Same thing with having dialogue or other skill checks tagged. Furthermore, knowing the degree of the skill check could also be reliant on that same stat. Same goes with revealing interactables radius with tab, or how much map gets revealed. That's just a few off the cuff ideas with one stat. Tying conventially metagame features to character stat would be a major incentive to building a more robust mechanics and game system.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,756
Good UI design doesn't take up the entire screen. Minimalism good.
:npc:
A character/inventory screen (as were most of the examples provided by luj1) should occupy the entire normal viewing screen in order to convey the necessary breadth of information to the player, with an exception for a Morrowind-style user interface utilizing scalable and movable windows.

VehXEyN.jpg
YYLI2T4.png


Morrowind example from Mobygames:
26818-the-elder-scrolls-iii-morrowind-windows-screenshot-inventory.jpg
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
Where ?
o0xO7T3.png


A good pixel art is good pixel art lol. It could be done,but modern devs lack the skillz and are too lazy to do it.

Have you tried playing that on non-conventional resolutions? Things will get ugly quick. I can already tell the text (numbers) are a bit fuzzy and not so crisp on that one. Can't you see that?
:nocountryforshitposters:
nigga this is in 1180x664. It is a fucking resolution that most people don't even know exists,i didn't knew about till i started it. Stop being such a cunt. Pixel art looks even better in high res when people put some time in to making it. The biggest problem of those mods/patches for old pixel art is scale. Some of them don't have rescale for the ui.
 

lukaszek

the determinator
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2015
Messages
12,618
what about wrist computer that looks like wrist computer?
60124_2_5.jpg
 

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