Editorial Matt Barton on the state of today's CRPGs

[eric__s]

Check this out, Cowboy Moment (and make sure your annotations are on). This is the only video I've ever watched of someone playing a video game over the internet. I guess it's a Let's Play but it differs from other Let's Plays because it doesn't have some wretched troglodyte mumbling and cussing over gameplay or dancing around in front of a camera. If we treat videos like presentations over entertainment, we allow them to be taken seriously and attract an audience looking for something more substantive than the people who watch Let's Plays.

Oh I just realized you think I am talking about doing a Matt Chat styled show, with some slob standing in front of a webcam stuttering about how Morrowind is great or whatever. No. Never.

The question, my brother, is not whether we are capable of doing these things. The question is whether we actually want to "connect RPG Codex to a larger audience".

I don't think this is a question at all, or else we wouldn't have a Codex Twitter feed or Facebook page. More people = more ad revenue for DarkUnderlord. Not that I'm suggesting this for monetary reasons. I think it would be fun to do.

 

[Metro]

Clearly we need an RPGCodex web cast but you gotta hire some aspiring female model to present it. I can always be the retro hipster wearing the old Pac-man shirts or the not-so-business casual blazer over a t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to my elbows displaying some hideous Asian writing tattoo.

 

[Sceptic]

a true CRPG experience such as Ultima VII.

Sigh.

This shift towards shooter-ization began very early, of course, with games like Ultima Underworld (1993), Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994), and Might & Magic VI (1998).

Matt should really stick to interviews. As much as I like these, every time he writes or makes a video about anything else, the sheer volume of idiocty going through makes my brain hurt.

Also, UW was 1992, get your dates right

 

[felipepepe]

Let's be honest about this, Metro, the only reason to replace text with videos in this context, is to make the whole thing more accessible to retards.

Nonsense, there are resources that only video can offer, it's a powerfull tool to debate things that require lots of examples or demonstrations. Even here on the Codex you can't expect everyone to have played all the "important games", so providing visual feedback on how Ultima Underworld differs from other games of that time is a very usefull thing to do.

 

[Johannes]

Text is good so I can skim through it fast, and can keep the silence or listen to music as I please.

 

[Infinitron]

Clearly we need an RPGCodex web cast but you gotta hire some aspiring female model to present it.

Radisshu

 

[Radisshu]

HAHAHA, I could do that probably

 

[Moribund]

Let's be honest about this, Metro, the only reason to replace text with videos in this context, is to make the whole thing more accessible to retards.

Lies! It also forces them to watch it, extending the game length nicely.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Don't think that having me kill a dragon in the opening scene of the game is going to impress me. It does the opposite. It disgusts me that you think you need to pander me, because I'm so insecure and idiotic, that I need to be patted on the head and told how "big of a boy I am!" I'd rather be locked into a 15-minute fight with a rat and barely manage to escape with one party member still conscious.

Won't win me friends for saying this, but I always preferred BG2 over BG1 for the opposite reason.

I didn't like the wolf/rat/kobold fighting of the initial segments of BG1, and how living or dying comes down to having a lucky dice roll in the early stages of the game. Considering that a level 1 party has a relatively limited set of options available to it, I am not sure if it even comes down to skill. So I got half my party at near death after a fight with ogres crossing the forest. Was this challenge, or something I simply couldn't help? Was this an avoidable situation, or just the normal hazard of crossing a forest?

At least in BG2, I could start at level 7, have a sorcerer with decent spells as soon as the game starts, and begin dealing with the real tough guys - the duergar, the cambion, the otyugh. I have the resources and options available, and the enemy can dish back too.

And it makes sense. Why the hell should a teenage kid straight out of a library be equipped to deal with or handle anything? When a game involves a major conflict, shouldn't the professionals be put on the job? Professionals like the kind you see at the beginning of BG2?

For the same reason, I enjoyed playing Icewind Dale 2 on Heart of Fury. With the increased XP and with some level squatting (delaying level-ups), my initially level 1 party could be level 20 right before the Horde Fortress. Meanwhile, the orcs and goblins won't be sword-fodder, but seasoned fighters themselves. That's the way it should be; why would you send a bunch of "newfags" straight into the heart of the Guthma's army? Except that's what happens on Normal.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

And it makes sense. Why the hell should a teenage kid straight out of a library be equipped to deal with or handle anything? When a game involves a major conflict, shouldn't the professionals be put on the job? Professionals like the kind you see at the beginning of BG2?

True, but when your character is a teenage kid sent into deal with these horrific threats more suited to a seasoned warrior, its a problem with the cliched narrative, not necessarily with starting at the first level. Why not make him/her a soldier in the army, randomly tasked to go on a mission? After the rest of your unit is slaughtered, you get all their xp. Boom. Hero time.

It was my impression that, in D&D at least, a first level character isn't just some dude(ette) who found a sword in the closet and started wasting orcs. A level-one PC was someone who was young, perhaps, but had still undergone enough training to be a professional. That's why there were level 0 NPCs and separate NPC classes; they may have some comparable skills, but the average person was definitely less competent than even a level-one character.

Staring at level one in a D&D-based game can be a bit annoying, but I think much of this is unique to D&D, as it comes from the familiarity of the setting and rules. You've probably done it dozens of times already, so it can feel a bit repetitive to go through the learning curve stage with every game when you've already learned everything. There is no joy of discovery when you know exactly which feats you will be picking for your first ten levels.

Plus 3.5E and below have kind of shitty HP development, which leads to kind of silly things being legitimate threats (which is why accelerating hit-dice rolling for some chunk of your future levels to character creation is a pretty good house rule IMHO).

 

[Zed]

cboyardee drop that fucking Kickstarter shit and make us some goddamn annotated game videos.

 

[MRY]

Somehow, this rant has all the ridiculous futility of spitting into the ocean because you're angry that it's so salty. It happens that Matt and I actually probably like more or less the same games, but it's always strange to see someone articulate what are clearly subjective feeling as objective truths. For example:

You don't arouse hatred in a player's heart by showing cutscenes or dialogues that paint the wizard as a real asshole. You do it by having him affect the gameplay, taking some or all of the player's money, for instance, or something as simple as a slow spell. Imagine a game where periodically the evil wizard forces everyone in the realm (including, of course, the players) to pay a 40% tax on all their property, losing items if they don't have the money.

Setting aside the (questionable) merits of Matt's idea, the fact is, lots and lots of people get really worked up over game stories. They get angry at villains who do nasty things, even when those things provide no gameplay impediment; that's especially true in jRPGs. Now, Matt may not like those kinds of games (or game stories). In most cases, I don't either. But, unless he means "you shouldn't arose hatred in a player's heart" then he's just wrong as a matter of fact.

To the extent he's talking about what developers should do rather than how players feel, it seems to me he hasn't done the work of explaining why the kind of game he likes is preferable even if players tend to prefer the kind of game he doesn't like. I don't think player preferences are always right; in fact, I think contemporary games have shamefully pandered to, and warped, player preferences in a way that has hurt game design -- not just for the developers cashing in on profitable but soul-numbing design but for all developers, because once players become generally hooked on, say, idiotic achievements, then said achievements become a mandatory feature.

The problem with Matt's rant is that it doesn't do any persuasive work at all. And I can't help but be a little weirded out by the invocation of Ultima, which -- for all its merits (which are considerable) -- is chock full of lame design decisions of the sort that Matt seems not to like.

 

[RK47]

Agreed, the wizard shd rape the player in the tutorial.

 

[Wyrmlord]

a true CRPG experience such as Ultima VII.

Sigh.

This shift towards shooter-ization began very early, of course, with games like Ultima Underworld (1993), Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994), and Might & Magic VI (1998).

Matt should really stick to interviews. As much as I like these, every time he writes or makes a video about anything else, the sheer volume of idiocty going through makes my brain hurt.

Also, UW was 1992, get your dates right

Yeah, he made me mad when he wrote that.

If Ultima Underworld was about the shooter-ization of RPGs, why did the core Ultima series continue to be produced? Because Ultima Underworld was about being its own game separate from the series, not about shooter-izing Ultima. And it was not a shooter, because it played nothing like a shooter.

As for Arena, he might have a point there, because Arena was being developed as a party-based RPG for some time, before the publishers told them to get back to the first-person style game they were making. Even then, Arena is a largely stat-based game, where the player only gets to choose whether to make an inaccurate but hard-hitting swing or a an accurate but weak swing. Bows and arrows don't even work like shooters; they are on auto-aim, and accuracy depends on your stats. Same with spells.

When he wrote that, I wondered: Has Matt actually given a chance to these games, or did he spend only five seconds on them before dismissing them as shooter imitators? Or did he just see screenshots of these games and made his mind about them? Dismissing an entire genre of first-person RPGs with manual combat as just pseudo-shooters simply betrays a shocking amount of ignorance about how they actually play. I didn't hear about these games until I was 16-18, but at least I gave them a chance.

 

[RK47]

Yep. I actually doubted the vitriol, but after reading and re-reading what Matt wrote, it seems clear to me that he should just stick to video interviews instead of writing an opinionated piece that is full of inaccuracies.

Yeah it's cool to bash shooter RPGs, Matt... but Ultima Underworld and Might and Magic 6 is the last thing I pinpoint for the start of 'shooterization' of RPG.

 

[Morkar Left]

He nowhere mentioned that M&M6 and UU are bad games. He just said that they were among the first to borrow the shooter gameplay which is a firstperson realtime 3D environment that relies on player reflexes to successfully play them. And that is technically correct.

 

[J_C]

He nowhere mentioned that M&M6 and UU are bad games. He just said that they were among the first to borrow the shooter gameplay which is a firstperson realtime 3D environment that relies on player reflexes to successfully play them. And that is technically correct.

But who plays MM6 battles in real time? I sure don't. UU might be a good example, but MM6 is not.

 

[Morkar Left]

J_C
Don't contradict yourself. Nobody believes your acting!

Just kidding.

Bur playing M&M6 in realtime was often better because you could dodge. Only sometimes tb was the preferable option (I still played in tb for fun).

 

[J_C]

J_C


Bur playing M&M6 in realtime was often better because you could dodge. Only sometimes tb was the preferable option (I still played in tb for fun).

Well, to be totally honest I used a mix of tb and rt. Used RT while the enemies were far away, spammeing arrows at them, and when they started to come close, I switched to TB.

 

[waywardOne]

No. Fuck anyone that wants the Codex to anything more than a (text) forum. How the fuck can this discussion be happening in the same place that collectively rants about journalistic integrity?

The value of this place is its combination of knowledge and honesty. I understand the hope and enthusiasm that makes someone say, "If only they had a guide, they, too, could enter the light." But they still wouldn't know how they got there, and they'll inevitably become lost again. Even just sanctioning a "non-Codex" Codexer's vlog is fundamentally anethema to our well-deserved but increasingly ugly arrogance. Posting why game X is great, or how game Y helps define a certain genre is suicide. Its a monologue, a sermon. Instead we should be encouraging people to come here and read the threads and all the viewpoints presented, not just the ones that are brofisted 7 times.

 

[octavius]

I don't think anyone who watched at least a few of his videos should find the above surprising. He's not doing a good job at hiding the fact that he is just another guy who deems isometric games made around year 2000 (BG, Fallout etc) truest, bestest crpgs ever and a paradigm of how crpgs should be made. I always felt that he plays and covers other crpgs just for the street cred and in fact doesn't like them much or at all.

Actually, Matt kind of hated the IE games due to their being real time. I think he's a Gold Boxer.

He should do a piece on MattChat about FRUA. You hear me J_C?

 

[octavius]

Don't think that having me kill a dragon in the opening scene of the game is going to impress me. It does the opposite. It disgusts me that you think you need to pander me, because I'm so insecure and idiotic, that I need to be patted on the head and told how "big of a boy I am!" I'd rather be locked into a 15-minute fight with a rat and barely manage to escape with one party member still conscious.

Won't win me friends for saying this, but I always preferred BG2 over BG1 for the opposite reason.

I didn't like the wolf/rat/kobold fighting of the initial segments of BG1, and how living or dying comes down to having a lucky dice roll in the early stages of the game. Considering that a level 1 party has a relatively limited set of options available to it, I am not sure if it even comes down to skill. So I got half my party at near death after a fight with ogres crossing the forest. Was this challenge, or something I simply couldn't help? Was this an avoidable situation, or just the normal hazard of crossing a forest?

It would have been perfectly avoidable if you had scouted ahead and found a safer route. Why didn't you?

 

[Gord]

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with offering cRPGs in different "form factors".
It becomes a problem when today almost every mainstream rpg plays like a shallow action game with some token rpg "elements" that ultimately do nothing else but change the animations your character uses when killing things.
Heck, even the relatively nice Divinity 2 is another shallow action game at it's heart (I did enjoy it and Larian did a lot of cool things with it, but a particularly deep rpg it is not).
This would be ok if there's other stuff available, but that isn't the case anymore (outside of indies).

If Kickstarter will save us has yet to be shown. I'm not yet convinced that Wasteland 2 will be more than just another aRPG.

 

[felipepepe]

No. Fuck anyone that wants the Codex to anything more than a (text) forum. How the fuck can this discussion be happening in the same place that collectively rants about journalistic integrity?

The value of this place is its combination of knowledge and honesty. I understand the hope and enthusiasm that makes someone say, "If only they had a guide, they, too, could enter the light." But they still wouldn't know how they got there, and they'll inevitably become lost again. Even just sanctioning a "non-Codex" Codexer's vlog is fundamentally anethema to our well-deserved but increasingly ugly arrogance. Posting why game X is great, or how game Y helps define a certain genre is suicide. Its a monologue, a sermon. Instead we should be encouraging people to come here and read the threads and all the viewpoints presented, not just the ones that are brofisted 7 times.

Agreed, I don't like idea of giving the Codex a face, it would harm the community, our wide diversity is what keep this interesting. We have some respected members that do interesting articles or reviews, but I understand them as elaborate pieces for the Codex to debate, not a statement of the Codex's views to the world.

The momment you have some guy on youtube saying "I'm from the RPG Codex, avatar of the hivemind", people will stop looking at all the forum threads & debates and just focus on the youtube guy. We become one of those websites like Penny Arcade or so, where no one really cares for all the people on the forums.

 

[Wyrmlord]

He nowhere mentioned that M&M6 and UU are bad games. He just said that they were among the first to borrow the shooter gameplay which is a firstperson realtime 3D environment that relies on player reflexes to successfully play them. And that is technically correct.

Except they don't require player reflexes.

All you do in Ultima Underworld is hold your mouse in one side of the screen for a particular kind of attack and keep it there to have the attacks continue. Beyond that point, it depends on the weapon you are using and your stats. That is nothing like the strafing and shooting of Doom.

And MM6? Did he even enable the turn-based mode in that game? I have never played the game outside of turn-based mode, considering the volume of enemies you face. Hell, I even dislike MM6 a little and I am not the biggest fan of that game. But calling it a shooter is just coming from an alternative reality.