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

[ItsChon]

I'm pretty sure the DOSBox issue @ItsChon refers to isn't about the DOS interface itself or the games' own interface but the fact that DOSBox due to how it works adds considerable input lag, especially for mouse. Some people do not notice that but if you do, it can be very annoying. Some graphics backends can alleviate a bit of that but in general all emulators (DOSBox, 86box, etc) have that problem. You basically have to force yourself to get used to it.

Though there is also the problem that some games do not set the mouse "mickeys" correctly for graphics modes - mickeys is the number of "ticks" per pixel the mouse reports - and the default setting is for the text mode resolution which uses double the mickeys for vertical movement that in turn makes the mouse feel faster horizontally than vertically. In DOS times there were TSRs to work around that and some mouse drivers used 1:1, but AFAIK DOSBox uses the common 8:16 setting. VGA is also kinda weird in that it isn't square pixels but has a bit of vertical stretching so you need something like 16:14 to get good results but again unless you use some TSR or the game sets that correctly (most dont) mouse movement will feel off.

Sounds about right. Normally I'm not one to complain about stuff like this, and I can understand why someones immediate reaction would be to scoff at such a complaint. After all, what is a little annoyance if it means you get to play an amazing RPG? But when I say it makes the experience pretty miserable, I mean it.

I remember trying to fuck with the tick cycles on DOS to make World of Xeen work along with a few other DOS related settings, and that was even before the annoying hotkeys/interface issues and the stuff with the mouse.

A big thing that kills me is knowing that if I knew more about DOS and how to fuck with the settings, I might not hate the experience as much. If someone installed the game on my computer and made all the settings "perfect", I'd have much more of a desire to play it.

 

[MLMarkland]

I'm pretty sure the DOSBox issue @ItsChon refers to isn't about the DOS interface itself or the games' own interface but the fact that DOSBox due to how it works adds considerable input lag, especially for mouse. Some people do not notice that but if you do, it can be very annoying. Some graphics backends can alleviate a bit of that but in general all emulators (DOSBox, 86box, etc) have that problem. You basically have to force yourself to get used to it.

Though there is also the problem that some games do not set the mouse "mickeys" correctly for graphics modes - mickeys is the number of "ticks" per pixel the mouse reports - and the default setting is for the text mode resolution which uses double the mickeys for vertical movement that in turn makes the mouse feel faster horizontally than vertically. In DOS times there were TSRs to work around that and some mouse drivers used 1:1, but AFAIK DOSBox uses the common 8:16 setting. VGA is also kinda weird in that it isn't square pixels but has a bit of vertical stretching so you need something like 16:14 to get good results but again unless you use some TSR or the game sets that correctly (most dont) mouse movement will feel off.

Sounds about right. Normally I'm not one to complain about stuff like this, and I can understand why someones immediate reaction would be to scoff at such a complaint. After all, what is a little annoyance if it means you get to play an amazing RPG? But when I say it makes the experience pretty miserable, I mean it.

I remember trying to fuck with the tick cycles on DOS to make World of Xeen work along with a few other DOS related settings, and that was even before the annoying hotkeys/interface issues and the stuff with the mouse.

A big thing that kills me is knowing that if I knew more about DOS and how to fuck with the settings, I might not hate the experience as much. If someone installed the game on my computer and made all the settings "perfect", I'd have much more of a desire to play it.

An alternative is just buying an ancient computer and running old games natively

 

[octavius]

Old games are crap.
Demon's Winter
You have 17 Intelligence. You should learn some new skill.
Every skill has an INT cost.
Every fucking time you have to look your INT and in some walkthrough on the internet, your Monk has already Karate skill - costs 1 INT, KungFu costs 3 INT. So you have 17-1-3=14 free INT for a new skill.
Or you can go the college (long journey) and they will tell you: You has no enough INT. Thanks!
There is no info about this in the manual.
Stupid game does not show the free usable INT points.
So it is possible for some old autist this is a great feature.
But in reality it is only a f*cking chore.
Playing an excel table or the windows calculator is more interesting.

I enjoyed Demon's Winter, and can't remember any significant problems with it. It was about ten years ago that I played it, though.
I think I'll have to replay it soon.

 

[Mortmal]

Old games are crap.
Demon's Winter
You have 17 Intelligence. You should learn some new skill.
Every skill has an INT cost.
Every fucking time you have to look your INT and in some walkthrough on the internet, your Monk has already Karate skill - costs 1 INT, KungFu costs 3 INT. So you have 17-1-3=14 free INT for a new skill.
Or you can go the college (long journey) and they will tell you: You has no enough INT. Thanks!
There is no info about this in the manual.
Stupid game does not show the free usable INT points.
So it is possible for some old autist this is a great feature.
But in reality it is only a f*cking chore.
Playing an excel table or the windows calculator is more interesting.

I enjoyed Demon's Winter, and can't remember any significant problems with it. It was about ten years ago that I played it, though.
I think I'll have to replay it soon.

There's no real problems with the game except we've seen lot better now. We are becoming intolerant to lot of things in those ancient games, having to walk back to town to see trainers and even pay to level up, the lack of automap , the lack of journal, long loading times, the poor interfaces, having to memorize each spells at each rest using keyboard. It was fine by then now its no longer considered as playable , we've seen so much better. Past 1997 rpgs , fallout and co are vastly superior. Also becoming old, grumpy, more lazy, and less willing to spend time on repetitive stuff.

 

[Rincewind]

I'm pretty sure the DOSBox issue @ItsChon refers to isn't about the DOS interface itself or the games' own interface but the fact that DOSBox due to how it works adds considerable input lag, especially for mouse. Some people do not notice that but if you do, it can be very annoying. Some graphics backends can alleviate a bit of that but in general all emulators (DOSBox, 86box, etc) have that problem. You basically have to force yourself to get used to it.

I don't think there's a noticeable lag even in old DOSBox, although I haven't used that for a long long time. However, I can state with absolute certainty that in DOSBos Staging (that I'm a maintainer of) there is basically almost no lag, the experience is very hardware-like. Pinball and Arkanoid-style games are the best to test the lag; these games are next to unplayable if the lag is more than about 3-5ms. In DOSBox Staging, I can't notice any such lag for the life of me, they play perfectly.

For the technically inclined, the "tick" resolution in DOSBox is 1ms. So the emulated PC is emulated at 1ms increments, then in the VGA emulation the output is rendered per-scanline with accurate timings. For audio emulation, we even do sub-tick accuracy (so much smaller than 1ms, pretty much down to the sample level), because some OPL and other synth audio drivers do funky stuff with very tight timings. These are all emulated accurately (I don't think old DOSBox does any sub-1ms emulation, from memory).

So to be clear, I can't notice any lag when using any input interface in DOSBox Staging, so mouse, keyboard, gamepads, joysticks, etc.

Though there is also the problem that some games do not set the mouse "mickeys" correctly for graphics modes - mickeys is the number of "ticks" per pixel the mouse reports - and the default setting is for the text mode resolution which uses double the mickeys for vertical movement that in turn makes the mouse feel faster horizontally than vertically. In DOS times there were TSRs to work around that and some mouse drivers used 1:1, but AFAIK DOSBox uses the common 8:16 setting. VGA is also kinda weird in that it isn't square pixels but has a bit of vertical stretching so you need something like 16:14 to get good results but again unless you use some TSR or the game sets that correctly (most dont) mouse movement will feel off.

Again, no idea what old DOSBox was doing, but we have a guy on the team who's *super* into accurate mouse/input emulation, so DOSBox Staging includes a major overhaul of the whole mouse emulation layer. We can even do multi-mouse, player vs player split-screen gaming on a single computer in supported games, e.g. Settlers! You can configure the mouse behaviour to your heart's content, and we even have a "raw" mouse mode where the host OS-level mouse acceleration is *not* added on top of the emulated mouse acceleration curve (e.g. the PS/2 curve), as it's normally the case.

Games setting the mouse sensitivity / resolution in funky ways is a problem on real hardware too, it always has been under DOS. In DOSBox Staging you can actually get *better* experience than on hardware by tweaking the various mouse related options (e.g. "normalise" the vertical vs horizontal sensitivity, which is off in many games on real hardware).

 

[booksarecool123]

orz thinks the *some games* are not *lasting many pieces* well at all and the* sad cows* on the rpgcodex are being silly and do not are realizing they've been left behind

 

[booksarecool123]

oblivion are a good rpg that *connects* to the many several *happy campers*. so is the breath of the wild by nintendo

 

[Rincewind]

There's no real problems with the game except we've seen lot better now. We are becoming intolerant to lot of things in those ancient games, having to walk back to town to see trainers and even pay to level up, the lack of automap , the lack of journal, long loading times, the poor interfaces, having to memorize each spells at each rest using keyboard. It was fine by then now its no longer considered as playable , we've seen so much better. Past 1997 rpgs , fallout and co are vastly superior. Also becoming old, grumpy, more lazy, and less willing to spend time on repetitive stuff.

I think if you keep at it for a few days, you'll get "recalibrated" to the old standards. At least that's how it works for me. Also, the more I play old games, the less I notice these things, and the less they bother me. Honestly, it's not really *that* bad; it's just we're more used to more "streamlined" interfaces, but you can easily de-condition yourself from that with a little bit of effort.

Although, that's still more effort than just whining about it. But here's a thing: you can stop whining and put the extra surplus energy towards getting familiar and more comfortable with old interfaces

 

[octavius]

There's no real problems with the game except we've seen lot better now. We are becoming intolerant to lot of things in those ancient games, having to walk back to town to see trainers and even pay to level up, the lack of automap , the lack of journal, long loading times, the poor interfaces, having to memorize each spells at each rest using keyboard. It was fine by then now its no longer considered as playable , we've seen so much better. Past 1997 rpgs , fallout and co are vastly superior. Also becoming old, grumpy, more lazy, and less willing to spend time on repetitive stuff.

I think if you keep at it for a few days, you'll get "recalibrated" to the old standards. At least that's how it works for me. Also, the more I play old games, the less I notice these things, and the less they bother me. Honestly, it's not really *that* bad; it's just we're more used to more "streamlined" interfaces, but you can easily de-condition yourself from that with a little bit of effort.

Yeah, I noticed that I enjoyed replaying Ultima Underworld much more when I was in "retro mode" (playing games chronologically), than when I was mostly playing newer games.

 

[Mortmal]

There's no real problems with the game except we've seen lot better now. We are becoming intolerant to lot of things in those ancient games, having to walk back to town to see trainers and even pay to level up, the lack of automap , the lack of journal, long loading times, the poor interfaces, having to memorize each spells at each rest using keyboard. It was fine by then now its no longer considered as playable , we've seen so much better. Past 1997 rpgs , fallout and co are vastly superior. Also becoming old, grumpy, more lazy, and less willing to spend time on repetitive stuff.

I think if you keep at it for a few days, you'll get "recalibrated" to the old standards. At least that's how it works for me. Also, the more I play old games, the less I notice these things, and the less they bother me. Honestly, it's not really *that* bad; it's just we're more used to more "streamlined" interfaces, but you can easily de-condition yourself from that with a little bit of effort.

Yeah, I noticed that I enjoyed replaying Ultima Underworld much more when I was in "retro mode" (playing games chronologically), than when I was mostly playing newer games.

See its not easy already for us and it will be ton worse for the kids. Speaking of Ultima underworld it looks especially terrible now on modern screens, like so many ancient games it requires a CRT monitor to look like what i should be.

 

[xuerebx]

Also becoming old, grumpy, more lazy, and less willing to spend time on repetitive stuff.

This is the goddamn truth. Although, maybe minus the repetitive stuff since I've predominantly been playing roguelikes this year and dying and restarting hundreds of times per game is standard practice. Grumpy and lazier though - nail on head. I've started getting really frustrated having loads of pending quests in the journal for example.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Most of people have limited intellectual abilities. It doesn't mean, they cannot understand anything, but simply they don't try too much. With intellectual boundaries comes emotional expansion, or rather lack of it. That's why majority sticks so strong to trends from their 20s (age when personality get full shape after teenage years). Paradoxically, this same trait makes them to despise all later trends.

There is also values question. For some of modern players older games are too sexy and too masculine.

 

[Mortmal]

There is also values question. For some of modern players older games are too sexy and too masculine.

Theodora alt detected... Come on the gender issue in video games again, too easy to spot.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

There is also values question. For some of modern players older games are too sexy and too masculine.

Theodora alt detected... Come on the gender issue in video games again, too easy to spot.

I'm sorry mister Mortmal, but WTF are you talking about?

 

[Vic]

most people don’t know what is good and blindly follow authority and peer pressure anyway

 

[La vie sexuelle]

most people don’t know what is good and blindly follow authority and peer pressure anyway

We all do that, but on different levels. Collectivism is important for our species, although, in execs or wrong context it could be dangerous. Or simply dumb.

 

[Vic]

most people don’t know what is good and blindly follow authority and peer pressure anyway

We all do that, but on different levels. Collectivism is important for our species, although, in execs or wrong context it could be dangerous. Or simply dumb.

please learn how to use the comma

 

[La vie sexuelle]

most people don’t know what is good and blindly follow authority and peer pressure anyway

We all do that, but on different levels. Collectivism is important for our species, although, in execs or wrong context it could be dangerous. Or simply dumb.

please learn how to use the comma

Why you don't look at me me when we make love?

 

[Bad Sector]

I don't think there's a noticeable lag even in old DOSBox, although I haven't used that for a long long time. However, I can state with absolute certainty that in DOSBos Staging (that I'm a maintainer of) there is basically almost no lag

There is (i always notice those because they do annoy me a bit, though that is mainly when playing 3D games where the mouse controls the camera, i don't mind a slight input lag in games where you control a cursor) but it is indeed minimal. In fact i am using DOSBox-Staging under Linux with X11 without a compositor and with OpenGL output, which is (or should be, if nothing is done wrong) basically the most optimal setup in terms of minimizing latency - i even have a 165Hz monitor :-P. However there is still a small amount of input latency there - and TBH i don't think it is possible to get rid of it without hacks in the emulator that expose the underlying graphics system and custom patches to the games to use those.

Again, no idea what old DOSBox was doing, but we have a guy on the team who's *super* into accurate mouse/input emulation, so DOSBox Staging includes a major overhaul of the whole mouse emulation layer. [..] Games setting the mouse sensitivity / resolution in funky ways is a problem on real hardware too, it always has been under DOS. In DOSBox Staging you can actually get *better* experience than on hardware by tweaking the various mouse related options (e.g. "normalise" the vertical vs horizontal sensitivity, which is off in many games on real hardware).

Just to be clear, the part about mickeys i mentioned was indeed something that was a problem with the real hardware - or specifically with real mouse drivers. The default option for many drivers was to use the same number of mickeys per pixel (or whatever the driver used as the position) as the text mode. Some games didn't change that or they used whatever values the programmers thought was fine in their mice/monitors. However since those were done via interrupt calls, there were some TSRs that allowed overriding them to get better results.

Being able to adjust horizontal and vertical sensitivity separately would basically allow doing the same thing at the emulator level, so it does indeed help with something you'd face on the real hardware too.

 

[EtcEtcEtc]

There's no real problems with the game except we've seen lot better now. We are becoming intolerant to lot of things in those ancient games, having to walk back to town to see trainers and even pay to level up, the lack of automap , the lack of journal, long loading times, the poor interfaces, having to memorize each spells at each rest using keyboard. It was fine by then now its no longer considered as playable , we've seen so much better. Past 1997 rpgs , fallout and co are vastly superior. Also becoming old, grumpy, more lazy, and less willing to spend time on repetitive stuff.

I think if you keep at it for a few days, you'll get "recalibrated" to the old standards. At least that's how it works for me. Also, the more I play old games, the less I notice these things, and the less they bother me. Honestly, it's not really *that* bad; it's just we're more used to more "streamlined" interfaces, but you can easily de-condition yourself from that with a little bit of effort.

Yeah, I noticed that I enjoyed replaying Ultima Underworld much more when I was in "retro mode" (playing games chronologically), than when I was mostly playing newer games.

Yeah, you have to be willing to come to the game on its own terms, and that's easier to do when you play a bunch of old games back to back. Makes the overall friction of UI issues, and quality of life issues, etc much easier to handle.

I played Disciples of Steel recently, and really liked it - but I had to readjust my expectations multiple times at the beginning because it's clunky as fuck, and focus on what it is doing well and bringing to the table that a lot of RPG's don't.

It's similar with a lot of art, you have to get on its wavelength and judge it for what it is - like reading Tolstoy and having to juggle a million Russian names - or listening to indie music from the 80's where the recording quality is shit. Doesn't mean the quality of the work is bad, just that you have to come to terms with what it is.

I'd also argue that some of that old time friction - walking back to town to level up, having to draw your own maps, the lack of a journal - those are limitations that actually can make a game better. Some of the most fun I've had playing RPG's is creating my own map for Wizardry or having to take notes playing Ultima IV/V - or having to backtrack to town in Pools of Radiance cause I leveled up but also I'm going to die at any moment.

 

[Cohesion]

oblivion are a good rpg that *connects* to the many several *happy campers*. so is the breath of the wild by nintendo

Now I want to play Star Control 2 and be *happy camper* again. Oblivion and Zelda are not for *happy campers*, these games are for *silly cows*, Nnnnnggggaaaahhhhh.

 

[Basshead]

After reading much retardation concerning the venerable IE games and how modern gamers "Can't into them" it struck me that there may be a reason(s) beyond decline, lowered IQ, and general spastication.

My main conclusion is this: I doubt modern gamers have read a book in their life. I had an entire collection of books (from pocket money and jobs) when I was a teen. It developed my imagination. So when I played BG, I wasn't playing a RPG with 'barren maps and no feedback' I was playing a game with a character that represented my alter ego in the FR. And a character that I built within it. That character was built around characters I had identified with in the books I read.

Without writing pages...you'd get it if you're my generation or older. And read books as a kid. But younger gamers seem to need that...prior imaginative blueprint. Like flashing images and 1 sentence responses from social media that continuously tell them who their character is.

And without that - they think older games are boring.

Ya man I think this is part of the issue. It has compounded with the younger generation, as when I was young not only did I read and play outside and with my imagination, even when computers came around it was a skill to learn. Even games were a console you plugged in, and you only had the games you had. With smart phones none of this applies. There is unlimited access to content and games. There is no typing. They ruin the development of imagination, attention span, and obviously contribute to maladaptive behavior. My 2 step children are having significant issues socially, behaviorally and academically. They can’t play or entertain themselves, before I was in the picture they just zoned out on tablets all day. They can’t pay attention to even learn the rules of basketball. It’s not fast or attention grabbing enough. In short they are shit kids. My daughter has more imagination and a better demeanor at 18 months old than they do at 10. The step boy and girl will end up in jail and as a harlot most likely. The youths in the school and neighborhood are similar. Unfortunately it fucks up much worse than game taste.

Serious question - why did you marry her?

Obviously I care about the bastards or they’d be long gone, or I wouldn’t care about them falling behind. I definitely care for the mother of my daughter, though it is very hard because she has borderline personality disorder and serious addiction issues. Horrible mood swings, trusts no one, verbal and physical abuse, the works. I have desperately wanted to help them from day one, but now I’m seeing that much of my effort has been futile. But at this point, I don’t think it’s responsible to break up. Even if I did that, I would have to maintain all the kids myself, which is basically what I’m already doing. Not many good options at the moment.

 

[Rincewind]

There is (i always notice those because they do annoy me a bit, though that is mainly when playing 3D games where the mouse controls the camera, i don't mind a slight input lag in games where you control a cursor) but it is indeed minimal. In fact i am using DOSBox-Staging under Linux with X11 without a compositor and with OpenGL output, which is (or should be, if nothing is done wrong) basically the most optimal setup in terms of minimizing latency - i even have a 165Hz monitor :-P. However there is still a small amount of input latency there - and TBH i don't think it is possible to get rid of it without hacks in the emulator that expose the underlying graphics system and custom patches to the games to use those.

Okay, I'm not an FPS/action gamer, so my sensitivity to this ends at pinball/Arkanoid-style games We do have one user though who is super into minimal/zero lag in FPS games on VRR monitors, and he has contributed a very nice guide on achieving essentially 1ms lag by forcing the DOS refresh rate to 1000Hz in late DOS era FPS games. You might be interested in this:

https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/wiki/High-refresh-rate-gaming

Being able to adjust horizontal and vertical sensitivity separately would basically allow doing the same thing at the emulator level, so it does indeed help with something you'd face on the real hardware too.

Yeah, so we have a setting for that in the [mouse] section:

# mouse_sensitivity: Mouse sensitivity for the horizontal and vertical axes, as a percentage # (100,100 by default). Negative values invert the axis, zero disables it. # Providing only one value sets sensitivity for both axes. # The setting can be adjusted in runtime (also per mouse interface) using # internal MOUSECTL.COM tool, available on drive Z.
I use it all the time to normalise the vertical/horizontal sensitivity on a per-game basis (so when moving the mouse in a 45-degree diagonal on my desk, the pointer's on-screen trajectory is a 45-degree diagonal too).

Plus make sure to check out MOUSECTL.COM, contributed by our resident dev who's super into all things input controller related:

 

[ind33d]

Trying to stay alive as a zoomer already is a roguelike. Why would they want to play another?

 

[newtmonkey]

Old games are crap.
Demon's Winter
You have 17 Intelligence. You should learn some new skill.
Every skill has an INT cost.
Every fucking time you have to look your INT and in some walkthrough on the internet, your Monk has already Karate skill - costs 1 INT, KungFu costs 3 INT. So you have 17-1-3=14 free INT for a new skill.
Or you can go the college (long journey) and they will tell you: You has no enough INT. Thanks!
There is no info about this in the manual.
Stupid game does not show the free usable INT points.
So it is possible for some old autist this is a great feature.
But in reality it is only a f*cking chore.
Playing an excel table or the windows calculator is more interesting.

I enjoyed Demon's Winter, and can't remember any significant problems with it. It was about ten years ago that I played it, though.
I think I'll have to replay it soon.

It's because you probably read or at least skimmed the manual, and it's all explained there ("Skills" section and "Appendix A"). I guess some people lack patience; luckily for them, we have tutorials and quest compasses now!