Reasons Why Younger Gamers Don't Get Older RPGs?.

[Vic]

DE is a high-brow RPG and certainly not recommendable to first time cRPG players as it would set wrong expectations. DE breaks the rules of traditional RPGs which at their core are kill stuff and get loot.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

You rated me but your post seems to be a general critique/observation, so I'm unsure if this is targeted towards what I wrote. Plenty of games back then had shit user interfaces, and plenty of games now have shit user interfaces. I don't think anyone here is claiming user interfaces today are great, we're just citing reasons why young people today might have difficulty getting into older games.

As an example, I downloaded Ultima 7, and I spent half an hour trying to get the UI to work how I want and figure out the controls, before closing the game because I couldn't be bothered to faff about any more. Shit like this is extremely common in older games, and whether or not it is common in new games too is irrelevant, as any game that has obtuse/weird/obnoxious controls is unlikely to hold a person's attention.

I maintain however that DOSBox is the biggest reasons young people don't play new games. I bet way more people would be open to trying new games if it wasn't for having to fuck around with this dogshit software to make the game work. Both of the images in your post loko gorgeous, but I already know that moving the cursor around the screen will feel like absolute shit, and just playing the game in general will feel bad. Shame.

If "plenty of games now have shit user interfaces" which do not keep younger gamers from playing them, then this isn't much of an excuse even for avoiding the older games with poor interfaces, and obviously isn't any kind of excuse for avoiding older games with better interfaces.

Dungeon Master can be played using the Return to Chaos clone for Windows, which is linked to in my signature, or via an emulator for the original Atari ST version or the Amiga version that quickly followed. No DOSBox required, and the mouse-driven interface is incredible. Someone who absolutely requires an automap can play Legend of Grimrock instead:

 

[Rincewind]

Disco Elysium is unique, and unlike any of the classic cRPGs that came before it. That being said, it has many commonalities with cRPGs, namely, its isometric view, lots of dialogue with intricate dialogue trees, doesn't hold your hand and trains the player to think for themselves, choices and consequences, skill checks, etc, etc. Combine that with its beautiful art, voice acting, twitter inspired dialogue tree system which is perfect for the modern person's brain, and a level of polish that is rare in cRPGs, and it can be an amazing introduction into the cRPG genre depending on the person.

It's an okay hipster adventure game with tacked on skill checks, but the pretentiousness and verbal diarrhea is sometimes just too much. It has nothing to do with cRPGs though. It had its moments, and I'd be lying if I said I did not enjoy it for the most part. But not an RPG.

And everybody loves Cuno.

 

[ItsChon]

If "plenty of games now have shit user interfaces" which do not keep younger gamers from playing them, then this isn't much of an excuse even for avoiding the older games with poor interfaces, and obviously isn't any kind of excuse for avoiding older games with better interfaces.

I was referring to RPGs when I said that.

Come on dude, are we really going to pretend that the control schemes and user interfaces of old games isn't a significant and valid reason for why young people bounce off of older titles? When I say UIs, I'm also referring to hotkeys and user interface navigation, which is as important as having a good user interface.

Dungeon Master can be played using the Return to Chaos clone for Windows, which is linked to in my signature, or via an emulator for the original Atari ST version or the Amiga version that quickly followed. No DOSBox required, and the mouse-driven interface is incredible. Someone who absolutely requires an automap can play Legend of Grimrock instead:

Legends of Grimrock is a dogshit game, but putting that aside, many young people did play that game in comparison to many other RPGs. Also, it's great that Dungeon Master can be played on windows, but many other old RPGs cannot be played on windows.

I don't even think you disagree with me, you're just citing exceptions, which is fine, but also irrelevant, since I never tried to pretend those exceptions don't exist. And of course, we're tunnel visioned on user interface navigation, quality, hotkeys, and technological limitations, but I did name several other reasons that were even more relevant just to note.

It's an okay hipster adventure game with tacked on skill checks, but the pretentiousness and verbal diarrhea is sometimes just too much. It has nothing to do with cRPGs though. It had its moments, and I'd be lying if I said I did not enjoy it for the most part. But not an RPG.

And everybody loves Cuno.

I hate when people use this buzzword, "pretentious". Please give some examples where the game comes off as pretentious. Also found the game very easy to read and really lacking in the verbal diarrhea department as well. The dialogue trees have a lot of depth, but each specific section was usually quite concise. There is a lot of dialogue but that doesn't mean it's verbal diarrhea. Codex will sit and praise dogshit like ELEX and FO:NV, but shit on an excellent game like Disco Elysium. Mind blowing.

 

[Decado]

I think the OP is correct. At least in the US, young men simply do not read anymore. Young adult literature has been taken over by activist Marxists obsessed with the successor ideology, so I can't blame them. And most young adult fantasy in particular has become a sewer of preachy, barren-wombed blue-hairs and gay men who are not good enough to write for adults, so instead they write libshit queer propaganda for young girls, hoping their incompetence will fly under the radar (it mostly does).

I'm in my early 40s. When I was a kid I had Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, David Gemmell, Tolkein, Robert E Howard, John Maddox Roberts (the best Conan pastiche writer, bar none) plus dozens of other one-off writers. This is on top of the various science fiction classics I had access to (Armor by John Steakly, Star Ship Troopers, etc.). There a few, if any, comparable writers producing that kind of unapologetically "masculine" fantasy for young men these days. All of that stuff I read is what got me into CRPGs to begin with.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

"plenty of games now have shit user interfaces"

Examples? I cannot think one.
But playing Demon's Winter now, man, that has an horrible interface.
You go into a room with lamp and you cannot see a large bed. You have to Inspect. Ooops something here. Then you have to examine it. Oooops it is a bed. May be a party of blind men. They are groping around.
But no, because a blind man would fall through the bed. And you without Inspect only walk through it as air.

The core of gameplay would be good - tactical combat.

In inventory you can see only *axe. You always have to look or remember that this *axe means Axe+1 Dormant with Chill and the other *axe means Axe+2.

In the olde times you have to play this. But now only a younger fool/idiot would play it.

 

[0sacred]

Anyone who "gets" Fallout 1 and can look past its serious flaws to enjoy its greatness is basically a grognard in the making. That person would probably have discovered good RPG's on their own at some point.

To ease someone into the genre who is used to being a decline slurper, I would assume BG is the game to do that job.

 

[ItsChon]

catfood ds I literally included a reddit inspired TL;DR for you retards and you still rated my post TL;DR. Neck yourself faggots.

 

[Mortmal]

I'm sympathetic to complaints about bad graphics or bad UI, though the latter is a bit of a puzzling complaint considering that general decline that has occurred in CRPG UIs over the last two decades, not entirely attributable to consolization, though that factor certainly exacerbated the trend. Meanwhile, Dungeon Master in 1987 devised a spectacularly innovative user interface that would eventually be widely copied in CRPGs (and beyond). And there are plenty of old CRPGs that either were created with functional 2D graphics that have aged decently or at least have remakes with substantially better graphics than the original.

You rated me but your post seems to be a general critique/observation, so I'm unsure if this is targeted towards what I wrote. Plenty of games back then had shit user interfaces, and plenty of games now have shit user interfaces. I don't think anyone here is claiming user interfaces today are great, we're just citing reasons why young people today might have difficulty getting into older games.

As an example, I downloaded Ultima 7, and I spent half an hour trying to get the UI to work how I want and figure out the controls, before closing the game because I couldn't be bothered to faff about any more. Shit like this is extremely common in older games, and whether or not it is common in new games too is irrelevant, as any game that has obtuse/weird/obnoxious controls is unlikely to hold a person's attention.

I maintain however that DOSBox is the biggest reasons young people don't play new games. I bet way more people would be open to trying new games if it wasn't for having to fuck around with this dogshit software to make the game work. Both of the images in your post loko gorgeous, but I already know that moving the cursor around the screen will feel like absolute shit, and just playing the game in general will feel bad. Shame.

If they cant make dosbox works, which has many tutorials around, or just get a gog version, then they cant possibly be interested into those games, they will be too hard to access.

 

[ItsChon]

If they cant make dosbox works, which has many tutorials around, or just get a gog version, then they cant possibly be interested into those games, they will be too hard to access.

When DOSBox works, it still feels like shit is my whole point.

 

[Rincewind]

I think the OP is correct. At least in the US, young men simply do not read anymore. Young adult literature has been taken over by activist Marxists obsessed with the successor ideology, so I can't blame them. And most young adult fantasy in particular has become a sewer of preachy, barren-wombed blue-hairs and gay men who are not good enough to write for adults, so instead they write libshit queer propaganda for young girls, hoping their incompetence will fly under the radar (it mostly does).

Yeah yeah, but who cares. There's enough good literature from the 20th century, and a lot more from the past millennia to last for centuries even if you're an avid reader. I was born in the 70s but rarely read sci-fi written post 1980 or so.

ItsChon You're a moron with shit taste, we're done here.

 

[Mortmal]

If they cant make dosbox works, which has many tutorials around, or just get a gog version, then they cant possibly be interested into those games, they will be too hard to access.

When DOSBox works, it still feels like shit is my whole point.

In 1990 DOS certainly felt like shit after having an amiga. Full graphic interface with icons and mouse support, sound, floppy autobooting.. to a text based shitty os just cause i wanted to play ultima 7. Dosbox nowadays is ton easier and you have acces to internet to copy paste and tweak whatever you want, no trouble to get enough ems memory either.

 

[Rincewind]

If they cant make dosbox works, which has many tutorials around, or just get a gog version, then they cant possibly be interested into those games, they will be too hard to access.

When DOSBox works, it still feels like shit is my whole point.

In 1990 DOS certainly felt like shit after having an amiga. Full graphic interface with icons and mouse support, sound, floppy autobooting.. to a text based shitty os just cause i wanted to play ultima 7. Dosbox nowadays is ton easier and you have acces to internet to copy paste and tweak whatever you want, no trouble to get enough ems memory either.

Yeah, I'm running an actual DOS PC here, but it's painful to configure games compared to how easy it has the whole thing become with DOSBox. Just taking the memory management nightmare out of the equation gets rid of 80% of the headaches.

100% agree with you on the Amiga to DOS migration experience. I went from a stock Amiga 500 + 1MB RAM expansion + external floppy drive to a 486 DX2/66 + Trident SVGA + GUS setup in 1995. Yeah, the hard drive was nice for sure, and so was the GUS, which was an improvement over the Amiga's sound capabilities (I was super into writing tracker music; I spent most of my time in FastTracker II on the 486). But double-scanned VGA 320x200 seemed overly blocky on those "clinical" business-oriented VGA monitors compared to the single-scanned output of the Amiga 500 paired with a C= 1084S. Sure, text was sharper, but that only mattered if you're staring at spreadsheets all day, not for games... And DOS was just shit, a total joke coming from AmigaOS / Workbench. 8+3 filenames after the 31 character Amiga limit? Just GTFO. Don't even get me started on the total lack of hardware-accelerated mouse pointer support... that was abysmal, that jerky, jumpy, flickering cursor in all games and even in Win 3.x.

Personally, I felt my Amiga 500 gaming experience was only surpassed when 640x480 / 256-colour gfx + full digital sound with EAX real-time effects became the norm, so around 2000 on my Win98 PC. But that OS was crap; the first PC OS I could objectively call usable and an improvement over AmigaOS was Windows 2000.

But ignorance is bliss, unironically. People whose first computer was a PC in the 90s simply have no idea what they missed out on. Some poor kids from my school who had an XT/286 with Hercules or CGA (EGA was too expensive for most people, not even mentioning VGA—a VGA card alone costed more than an A500) and no sound card almost cried when I showed them a few Amiga games and demos in the early 90s.

Just like young people who never played proper 80s/90s cRPGS... oh, wait!

 

[MLMarkland]

I think the OP is correct. At least in the US, young men simply do not read anymore. Young adult literature has been taken over by activist Marxists obsessed with the successor ideology, so I can't blame them. And most young adult fantasy in particular has become a sewer of preachy, barren-wombed blue-hairs and gay men who are not good enough to write for adults, so instead they write libshit queer propaganda for young girls, hoping their incompetence will fly under the radar (it mostly does).

Yeah yeah, but who cares. There's enough good literature from the 20th century, and a lot more from the past millennia to last for centuries even if you're an avid reader. I was born in the 70s but rarely read sci-fi written post 1980 or so.

ItsChon You're a moron with shit taste, we're done here.

Whether a culture produces new literature, new art or not, and so on, or does not, is one of the defining characteristics of a culture.

Not thinking culture is significant, and can merely be produced by artifice is a tenet of Marxist-Maoist reductionary utilitarianism.

Or in other words: stories about bureaucrats are boring and will not be told except under pain of death.

 

[Rincewind]

I think the OP is correct. At least in the US, young men simply do not read anymore. Young adult literature has been taken over by activist Marxists obsessed with the successor ideology, so I can't blame them. And most young adult fantasy in particular has become a sewer of preachy, barren-wombed blue-hairs and gay men who are not good enough to write for adults, so instead they write libshit queer propaganda for young girls, hoping their incompetence will fly under the radar (it mostly does).

Yeah yeah, but who cares. There's enough good literature from the 20th century, and a lot more from the past millennia to last for centuries even if you're an avid reader. I was born in the 70s but rarely read sci-fi written post 1980 or so.

ItsChon You're a moron with shit taste, we're done here.

Whether a culture produces new literature, new art or not, and so on, or does not, is one of the defining characteristics of a culture.

Not thinking culture is significant, and can merely be produced by artifice is a tenet of Marxist-Maoist reductionary utilitarianism.

Or in other words: stories about bureaucrats are boring and will not be told except under pain of death.

Yeah true, I was talking from a practical POV. Just because there are few good *new* books, you could still simply go read the vast back catalog.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

You literally said that it is a game you mention to friends getting into the genre, which is the point I was making.

I said I mention it, but I don't recommend it to be their entry into the genre because it gives them completely different expectations for other games.

You said it's a good entry, implying it's something they should play when getting into the genre.

So no, the fact I merely mention the game is not the point you were making.

Not gonna read a wall of text when you're not even following your own words.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Or in other words: stories about bureaucrats are boring and will not be told except under pain of death.

 

[Harthwain]

As I mentioned above, if you don't have experience with isometric games/blobber view games, it's very easily to bounce off and/or dislike a game simply due to having such a view, even if the game is of great quality. Disco Elysium introduces people to these views, prepping them for future titles, while also minimizing the chance that someone will bounce off.

As much as I like Disco Elysium I strongly doubt it's a good introductory title to the genre's past. To be honest, I am not sure which title I would recommend. Either Planescape: Torment or Fallout. Maybe even both, because one is party-based, while the other is solo and they can "branch" into different groups of cRPGs. Fallout is more down-to-earth (despite its silliness) and as such it's easier to grasp. Planescape: Torment can be a bit overwhelming when played as literally your first cRPG considering its unique setting.

the pretentiousness and verbal diarrhea is sometimes just too much.

It has nothing to do with cRPGs though. It had its moments, and I'd be lying if I said I did not enjoy it for the most part. But not an RPG.

What's an RPG?

When DOSBox works, it still feels like shit is my whole point.

I hate operating DOS, but once you get the (good) game to work it's great experience so my advice to anyone would be to suffer through it, because it's well worth the effort. Of course, you need to get a good game first...

I think the OP is correct. At least in the US, young men simply do not read anymore. Young adult literature has been taken over by activist Marxists obsessed with the successor ideology, so I can't blame them. And most young adult fantasy in particular has become a sewer of preachy, barren-wombed blue-hairs and gay men who are not good enough to write for adults, so instead they write libshit queer propaganda for young girls, hoping their incompetence will fly under the radar (it mostly does).

Yeah yeah, but who cares. There's enough good literature from the 20th century, and a lot more from the past millennia to last for centuries even if you're an avid reader. I was born in the 70s but rarely read sci-fi written post 1980 or so.

"People don't read" is a myth*. When people like something they enjoy engaging with it, even if it has a lot of text. It was true for the Harry Potter books, it is true for Disco Elysium. So it's not really people not being "avid readers" that's the problem here.

* "People don't want to waste their already limited time on shit" is much closer to the truth. Of course, people avoiding reading shit is bad for book business and for shitty writers. But if your writing is interesting enough (for whatever reason) people will read it and it will become popular. The only exception here are books based on some known IP. Different rules apply here.

 

[ItsChon]

Not gonna read a wall of text when you're not even following your own words.

Wall of text? It's two and a half lines of text you baboon. Should I write this post using emojis so it doesn't overload your tiny brain?

You said it's a good entry, implying it's something they should play when getting into the genre.

So no, the fact I merely mention the game is not the point you were making.

Not gonna read a wall of text when you're not even following your own words.

Also lmao at this pretentious ass post. Just a tip, you're not even a quarter as smart as you'd like to think you are. If we want to be so pednatic, I said it's something they could when getting into the genre.

That statement carries the implication that I don't always recommend it to people, and that it could be a good recommendation for the kind of person that you know wouldn't be so keen on a title like Baldur's Gate or Fallout, while you might just mention it to someone with different taste.

If you had bothered to read the "wAlL oF tExT" that I wrote, you would have seen me clarifying what I meant, that even though DE is not a typical cRPG, it can still be a good recommendation. Keep your faggot ass attitude to yourself when addressing me.

 

[ItsChon]

As much as I like Disco Elysium I strongly doubt it's a good introductory title to the genre's past.

I said introductory title to the genre. It certainly isn't an introduction to the genre's past. ATOM and Black Geyser/PF:KM could serve as good introductory titles to the past (if the past means titles pre-2000's. I'd name other RPGs if I had to introduce someone to DOS era games), to name some examples. If I had to take a Skryim/Fallout 4 enjoyer, that I know wouldn't be interested in any style of isometric genre, is interested in dialogue/narratives, and wouldn't look at older graphics favorably, Disco Elysium could be a great game to adjust them to the isometric view and prep them for some of the things they might see in RPGs.

 

[tastywaffles]

BEHOLD! The worst video ever on Fallout:

(Sorry if this has been posted here before but it's a good look at a zoomer struggling to find his way out of a paper bag while making a video essay about said bag)

That seems like an excellent example of attention span attrition. Imagine what its like in that guy's buzzing dog-spotting-a-squirrel level of distracted mind. (The future of humanity is bleak.)

 

[Maxie]

disco shitizium is anything but introductory to the genre for it does not represent the genre, it's a text game which gives you extra flavor text for passing checks, not even a CYOA like the Sorcery! series

 

[Harthwain]

I said introductory title to the genre. It certainly isn't an introduction to the genre's past. ATOM and Black Geyser/PF:KM could serve as good introductory titles to the past (if the past means titles pre-2000's. I'd name other RPGs if I had to introduce someone to DOS era games), to name some examples. If I had to take a Skryim/Fallout 4 enjoyer, that I know wouldn't be interested in any style of isometric genre, is interested in dialogue/narratives, and wouldn't look at older graphics favorably, Disco Elysium could be a great game to adjust them to the isometric view and prep them for some of the things they might see in RPGs.

A few question:

1) Why the assumption that "Skyrim/Fallout 4 enjoyer" has very particular tastes? In my experience (both as the player and as someone watching what people recommend to each other) the genre isn't that expansive anymore for RPG players to not be omnivores.

2) Do people really need to "adjust to the isometric view"? Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how the isometric view could be seen as a barrier for someone. I feel like the line of the divide could be "action RPGs" vs "turn-based RPGs", but that's deeper than just the visual presentation: it's how the gameplay is handled.

3) Disco Elysium is a great example of PnP RPG. But to me it's more like the pinnacle of the genre (the narrative one), rather than something you'd recommend as an introductory title. Then again, I guess if you have to recommend something you might go with the best and hope that the love for mechanics will carry on?

However, I am afraid the type of RPG that Disco Elysium is (stats!), is very limited. I mean, how many RPGs are out there where stats matter for C&C? Troika games are in the past. Planescape: Torment is in the past. Rue Valley and Esoteric Ebb are very similar to Disco Elysium (to the point of being Disco-esque), but they aren't yet released, so there is no telling whether they will be worth playing. Can't really think of anything else in this vein.

 

[gaussgunner]

If they cant make dosbox works, which has many tutorials around, or just get a gog version, then they cant possibly be interested into those games, they will be too hard to access.

When DOSBox works, it still feels like shit is my whole point.

That's just how those games were (if you set it up to run in a large enough window, not fullscreen because of widescreen stretching). Every game had its own UI, some were great, most were clunky by Mac/Windows/Amiga standards, more like console games.

Dune 2 (1992) is the oldest DOS game that comes to mind that had what you might call an intuitive UI. It was a big hit, started the RTS genre. Then Win95 came out and developers started making Windows games with ugly ass Windows UIs, especially RPGs. They got better in the 2000s but then the quality of games themselves went into decline. Most still have shitty UI because of mobile faggotry and shit. So what is your point?

 

[EtcEtcEtc]

Or in other words: stories about bureaucrats are boring and will not be told except under pain of death.

The Trial would like to have words with you.

"People don't read" is a myth*. When people like something they enjoy engaging with it, even if it has a lot of text. It was true for the Harry Potter books, it is true for Disco Elysium. So it's not really people not being "avid readers" that's the problem here.

* "People don't want to waste their already limited time on shit" is much closer to the truth. Of course, people avoiding reading shit is bad for book business and for shitty writers. But if your writing is interesting enough (for whatever reason) people will read it and it will become popular. The only exception here are books based on some known IP. Different rules apply here.

33% of high school graduates never read another book the rest of their lives and 42% of college grads never read another book after college.

It's not a myth, unfortunately.