Editorial Oblivion article at NY Times

[Data4]

*Data4 mentions how the wife he mentioned three pages ago is going to dress up as a Klingon and perform oral sex. Everyone raises an eyebrow.*

Don't knock it. Those prosthetic teeth add a whole new dimension.

-D4

 

[Twinfalls]

Alright Azarkon, we've clearly reached the 'agree to disagree' stage, not that we're especially polar in our positions - it's to be agreed that playing games to the detriment of talking to people around you is Not a Good Thing.

I will always remain of the view however that MMOs shoulder a very significant chunk of the responsibility for real CRPGs (ie single player ones) going right down the festering toilet bowl that popular music and film are swirling around in right now.

 

[Azarkon]

Fair enough, though I wonder why you'd blame MMOs. The golden age for me, at least, was during the IE days when BIS/Bio were in charge of the proverbial CRPG renaissance. Fallout fans might extend that era a while back, but in both cases it wasn't the MMOs that brought'em low, and neither of their design philosophies have been particularly influenced by MMOs even now (more by action RPGs, I'd say).

 

[almondblight]

Matt Murdoch is a fucking blind lawyer in Hell's Kitchen, and a fucking part-time crimefighter. When the fuck does he have time to run media publications or control news?

Jesus fuck on a stick get your fucking facts striaght you fucking cunt.

Maybe a regular cunt like you wouldn't have time, but he's fucking Daredevil, not "aweighdevil" or whatever bullshit you're thinking of. He's a real man.

 

[Twinfalls]

Fair enough, though I wonder why you'd blame MMOs. The golden age for me, at least, was during the IE days when BIS/Bio were in charge of the proverbial CRPG renaissance. Fallout fans might extend that era a while back, but in both cases it wasn't the MMOs that brought'em low, and neither of their design philosophies have been particularly influenced by MMOs even now (more by action RPGs, I'd say).

I did say a 'chunk' of the blame - it's not MMOs by themselves to be sure, but a simple look at the resources diverted from CRPGs and into MMOs speaks of a major reason for the decline in numbers, if not outright quality.

 

[Svartberg]

<i>Attention whore!</i>

HHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[Azarkon]

I did say a 'chunk' of the blame - it's not MMOs by themselves to be sure, but a simple look at the resources diverted from CRPGs and into MMOs speaks of a major reason for the decline in numbers, if not outright quality.

I guess I've always had the impression that there weren't many companies doing CRPGs to begin with in the post-Gold Box era, and that the Interplay/BIS/Bio era was the exception and not the rule in a historical drought.

Meanwhile, the companies that went into MMOs didn't occur to me as companies that would've made CRPGs otherwise. Let's see, off the top of my head: Verant, Sony Online Interactive, Blizzard, NCSoft, Turbine, Mythic, Wolfpack, Square Enix... Nope, not a single name I recognize for CRPGs. Ah, perhaps UO? Hmm... I do recall Ultima X being canceled for UO, so you might be right in this case.

It's possible that if not for MMOs we'd have more/better CRPGs, but what's to say we wouldn't just get a bunch of console RPG or action RPG clones instead? Or some other sort of MP RPG type, like Guild Wars? I can see how the current craze over MMOs invite the theory that they're taking money away from all other genres, but how much of that is really going to affect a genre that's traditionally been the domain of only a small number of companies all of whom (still surviving) are sitll pretty much producing CRPGs? (granted, Bio's attempting a MMO and I'm sure in the back of their mind Obsidian would be too - but those projects appear independent of the CRPG line, at least for now)

 

[Twinfalls]

Ultima is the classic example. You'd think that developers behind DAOC or even that Ancient-Egypt themed MMO, the non-violent one (is that still going?) would have turned their hands to solo crpgs had MMOs not been around.

RPG developers come and go you know, it's not accurate to just speak of the ones in existence from way back.

Look, you've made your point well, but there's also the other aspect of MMOs to consider - the cultural effect. I think the evidence is strong for example, that the reason Oblivion is so disappointing as an RPG, the reason it so heavily emphasises combat and grinding and levelled loot-hunting, is because Bethesda recognised the need to extract patronage from MMOs.

This stuff is the culture that MMOs have spread, the idea that RPG gameplay must be EQuesque. Making your avatar's face look like yourself, playing fantasy dress-up, and eternally grabbing teh Phatlewt.

And this is part and parcel of the reason for the decline in the sophisticated CRPG of yore.

 

[Azarkon]

Well, then let's hope that WoW is the last truly successful MMO within the near future, and that Dragon Age/NWN2 succeeds well enough to bring back another CRPG renaissance.

 

[bryce777]

the absence of a social context often leaves single-player games feeling a bit pointless.

Pfft, I play games because I'm an antisocial bastard. Games are an escape, like hiking or a book. Multiplayer has a very limited appeal for me, especially with strangers.

MMO games are for fat wiccans who can't get any attention in a chat room once they show thier picture.

 

[Section8]

i wouldn't say that Oblivion is particularly poor in that respect. That social interaction in any RPG, and particularly in Oblivion can't keep up with real conversations is no doubt true. But we all know what real conversations, especially in MMO's can be like...

Well, all I can offer in reply to that is a subjective view from a not entirely informed perspective. I haven't touched the main quest at all yet, and I've onyl visited about 3 of the cities, but...

The NPCs just don't do it for me. If I want to create a good impression, I have to tell jokes, give compliments, insult and threaten. If I ask someone about the city in which they live, the question seems to be a catchall for just about every typical get-to-know-you question; all rolled into one. Occasionally I'll find an "important" NPC out in the wilds somewhere, with nothing at all to say, and that throws me too. It's glaringly obvious that they're a listening post waiting the be "activated" by some other game condition.

And the big killer for me is that I very rarely construct an actual sentence when talking to someone. Dialogue trees may be an ultra-simplistic representation of actual verbal dialogue, but it's far more analogious, and my brain seems to "click" with that.

I guess I'm not doing the game justice though, since most of my NPC interaction consists of sneakily killing my kindred outlaws, since they will never have anything to say, interesting or not.

Oh and Rat Keeng, top stuff!