How RPGs Were A 30-Year Detour

[Gord]

Always the fucking apologists. Come on, you love the taste of BW jizz. BW didn't head in any direction it wasn't already in. It didn't suddenly decide to throw gay romances, whiny as fuck and recycled groupmates, linear areas, recycled plots into their games. They were always there. If it takes a shitfest like DA2 to realize what was always there, then that's tough.

So what? Maybe some of the shit was already there, but then it still didn't make ME or DA:O bad games.
Both games had stuff that was pretty well done, but due to their other shortcomings they aren't exactly the greatest games of all time. But that I never said anyway. You can kiss my hairy teutonic ass!

 

[Esquilax]

This aren't exactly the best examples. Sure, hindsight is always 20/20, but DA:O at least showed promise. It's not an entirely bad game, even if some people here would like to pretend. Only later the direction where BW was heading became really apparent.
And ME, well, there aren't many rpg(-surrogates) using a scifi-license and again, it showed some promise.
I'd say hoping for improvement (what many people here would call improvement) seemed justified a few years ago.
Unfortunately Bioware never delivered.

Always the fucking apologists. Come on, you love the taste of BW jizz. BW didn't head in any direction it wasn't already in. It didn't suddenly decide to throw gay romances, whiny as fuck and recycled groupmates, linear areas, recycled plots into their games. They were always there. If it takes a shitfest like DA2 to realize what was always there, then that's tough.

Gotta love that black-and-white mentality.

Gord: DA:O and ME weren't entirely bad games.
circ: LOLOLOL YOU LOVE THE TASTE OF BIOWARE JIZZ!!!

You realize that there's an entire continuum of positions one might hold about BioWare games in between the two extremes of try-hard edgy Codexer on one end and President of the David Gaider fan club on the other, right? All Gord was saying was that while all that annoying shit was always present to some extent in Bio games (a million romance plots, whiny pussies with emotional issues all over the place, recycled "4 Star Maps" plotlines) it became painfully obvious and apparent even to long-time BioWare fans with Dragon Age 2.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like that "It's all EA's fault!" narrative that a lot of journos and BioWare fans seem to be telling themselves, but it's pretty clear to me that EA probably greatly accelerated that "mainstreaming" process that was already occurring within BioWare prior to being bought out. The tight deadlines and the rush to pump out a new franchise title every year certainly can't help either.

 

[UserNamer]

I can understand that the original intention was creating action games. What saddens me is that in the meantime they didn't realize that what they created is a lot more interesting than most of the banal action shit out there now

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Most of games from 80s are action games. A lot of them are crappy.

 

[Elzair]

Well, you know, we analyzed the long history of video games. I think these games always wanted to be action games at their heart. I think all those old turn-based games, it's just that's all the technology would allow.

The tech today, using Unreal Engine 3, which allows us to prototype really, really fast and spend more time to make the game than worrying about the technology, it allowed us to deliver on that action experience.

When you play a modern action game, whether it's set in World War II or outer space, they all have similar mechanics -- jumping into cover, ducking into over, and shooting. We thought that applied equally well to spellcasting and shooting a bow as it did to shooting a machine gun. It was really our primary goal in the beginning to just find all the ways we could...

This is why games seem so homogeneous these days. They all use the same engine!

 

[deus101]

My discovery on gamasutra just make me so depressed....so i bought Knights of the challice to cheer me up :D

 

[SCO]

You're discussing bioware with drog.

Just saying

 

[DungeoneerAlex]

Such a shame that Gary Gygax didn't have access to an Unreal engine. Imagine what he wouldn't have done.

 

[Daemongar]

Such a shame that Gary Gygax didn't have access to an Unreal engine. Imagine what he wouldn't have done.

Gygax did have access to the unreal engine, but in those days it was called... YOUR IMAGINATION

 

[DungeoneerAlex]

Such a shame that Gary Gygax didn't have access to an Unreal engine. Imagine what he wouldn't have done.

Gygax did have access to the unreal engine, but in those days it was called... YOUR IMAGINATION

Exactly. Well said.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

After playing Hunted it finally makes all sense:


Gears of War is the pinnacle of RPG Gameplay

 

[Teepo]

What does mean?

Also, LOL@skyway implying that codexers don't pirate their games.

Even if every single codexer ever bought Mass Effect 2, they are not contributing to the steady distillation of games over the years. Even without RPGcodex on board ME2 was going to be a massive success.

The distillation of game depth has to do with the developers. They would've done that anyway unless their games would be massive failures. And RPG codex has no effect on if a game is going to be a success or not.

Great thread.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I think it's funny that anyone buying said games of the decline from the Codex could actually impact the direction of said games towards either decline through buying them or incline by avoiding them. If the codex was the majority and had that sort of impact, things would likely look differently.

With that said, I have contributed towards the decline. I have purchased the following games:

Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Fallout 3
Mass Effect
Dragon Age: Origins
Mass Effect 2
Fallout: New Vegas (this one is arguably not part of the decline, but Obsidian could do much better).

You know what the sad thing is? Even if I and anyone else from the codex didn't purchase any of those games, they would have STILL sold well enough for the developers to continue raking in cash and continuing the idea that THOSE games are representative of RPGs.

When I read comments from developers like in this topic, it's no wonder games are on a decline.

 

[Joe Krow]

I used to hate those turn based pinball games on the Commodore 64. Damn the limits of technology!!

 

[Luzur]

you should have tried the Amiga pinball games instead.

hmm, turn-based pinball? that could work.

 

[Monkeybiscuit]

Hunted is a great action game and all. But I'd love to know why it's being discussed in an interview which is discussing the RPG genre.