RPGs cannot have action-based movement or combat, Fallout: New Vegas is not an RPG

[conan_edw]

If New Vegas could be beaten in the way you say, I'd gladly say that there is one way to play it like an RPG, but only if stats allow you do that, instead of everyone being able to.

So only going through this specific path makes it an RPG? talk about role-playing

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

If F:NV is an RPG, Wizardry and PS:T, and AoD, and Fallout 1 can't be.

It doesn’t matter whether a game fit the definiens of your pet definition of cRPG, but whether its gameplay is determined by one or more of the traditional cRPG elements. That is the difference you are ignoring and that’s what makes F:NV so different from other FPSs, or Wizardry stand apart from a regular action game with swords.

You keep arguing as if your pet definition of cRPGs was an axiom that other people should take for granted. First, people will never make a consensus about this issue, just as they never have a consensus about any of the abstract definitions. That’s not how these things work. Second, you are not doing yourself any favours by being stubborn and dogmatic.

 

[MajorMace]

Isn't it called an Immersive Sim? I'm fine with that. It even exists in such lists.

a school of game design in which the player is free to act as they choose in a richly simulated world
that's gibberish, and looking at the list it seems to refer to fps which revolve around something else than just shooting stuff, with genres as varied as stealth (dishonored), traditional railroaded shooters (bioshock infinite) and even rpgs (skyrim) as bad as they are.
fallout, pst, bg2, m&m all fit this loose description at it is, since it doesn't even mention the first person perspective as a requisite + i'm not surprised it's a term promoted by a designer eager to sell his stuff as original or different. League of legends promoted the term moba to justify their use of dota mechanics, map, core design etc
yet moba doesn't mean anything, even street fighter IV would fit the description

 

[Lacrymas]

a school of game design in which the player is free to act as they choose in a richly simulated world
that's gibberish, and looking at the list it seems to refer to fps which revolve around something else than just shooting stuff, with genres as varied as stealth (dishonored), traditional railroaded shooters (bioshock infinite) and even rpgs (skyrim) as bad as they are.
fallout, pst, bg2, m&m all fit this loose description

No, they don't. Saying Fallout 3 and Fallout 1 "fit the same description", which isn't even the definition of immersive sim, no idea where you copied that from, continues the wishful reality bending that has infected this thread. Skyrim isn't an RPG.

 

[MajorMace]

From the link you gave me
But enlighten me then, what's the definition of immersive sim, and why does it include horror games like Alien Isolation, railroaded fps like Bioshock Infinite, rpgs like FNV and Skyrim, stealth game like Dishonored and even the excellent Dark Messiah arpg, with story driven games and open world sandboxes mixed together in a glorious nonsense whose sole and only common feature seems to be the first person view ?

Alright, let's check wikipedia :

An immersive sim (simulation) is a video game genre that emphasizes player choice. Its core, defining trait is the use of simulated systems that respond to a variety of player actions which, combined with a comparatively broad array of player abilities, allow the game to support varied and creative solutions to problems, as well as emergent gameplay beyond what has been explicitly designed by the developer.

Immersive sims by definition allow for multiple approaches, and typically incorporate elements of multiple genres, including role-playing games, stealth, first-person shooters and platform games. Although they typically have smaller worlds than open world games, they also generally allow for open-ended gameplay, allowing the player to progress in any order and pursue side missions alongside any main story missions.[1][2] Immersive sims are generally compared to the first titles in the game series Thief, System Shock, and Deus Ex, known as the earliest and critically acclaimed titles in the genre.[3]

The term "immersive sim" may also be used to describe the game design philosophy behind the immersive sim genre, which uses interacting, reactive and consistent game systems to create emergent gameplay and a sense of player agency

Dude. It's gibberish. And this definition, again, says nothing about the design philosophy. You can a make a pure shooter, an rpg or a horror game - well, as proven by the lists you gave me, really - and still fit that loose and absurd category.

 

[Lacrymas]

Because all of them aren't RPGs and have to be lumped into somewhere else, immersive sim is as good a word as any. Do you think this term would exist if we could just call them RPGs and be done with them? And Thief, System Shock and Deus Ex have more in common than ToEE and F:NV, and that's because there is no fact twisting involved, funny that.

 

[MajorMace]

Do you think this term would exist if we could just call them RPGs and be done with them?

I think it sure wouldn't exist if someone wasn't, at some point, so determined to put in peoples' minds that his game truely is nothing like what's been done before.

 

[JarlFrank]

People who elevate "character skill over player skill" to the point that any gameplay element based on player skill is "not RPG" are retarded, because what they're saying is "my perfect RPG is something like progress quest which plays itself without any player input, because hey, character skill > player skill!".

 

[mfkndggrfll]

Its a Rushed Piece of Garbage for sure. I dont think anybody can argue with that.

 

[Tygrende]

If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the video games, it is that many things may define the nature of an RPG. Whether stats, or C&C, or UI or gameplay - whatever you believe can define the nature of an RPG, can.

I've seen belief move genres, make men stave off decline, and turn an evil developer's heart half-circle. This entire forum has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a player, whose heart clung to the hope that the company loved him when it did not. Once, it made a man seek incline and achieve it. And it has made a codex poster think his opinion is something more than an opinion.

 

[Prime Junta]

If you're out of action points you have to get out of VATS and run around like a retard until the action points regenerate.
That's as much twitch as anything

If you find that running around constitutes twitch gameplay, I would suggest consulting a specialist because you clearly have some nontrivial neurological disorder.

 

[Parabalus]

What more can I say itt? Nobody is disputing my points, just repeating that F:NV is an RPG and that's that (and that I'm a troll, so that invalidates anything I say automatically), the most fun one is "it's better than Bethesda's Fallout, so it's an RPG!". I wonder why nobody is defending Alpha Protocol, which is basically the same thing, but I did say it also isn't an RPG. "Attempt at reality bending: The Thread".

You use weasel words and move the goalpost all the time, go over the top RPG list and explicitly name all games aren't RPGs so people can argue properly.

 

[Sigourn]

What more can I say itt? Nobody is disputing my points, just repeating that F:NV is an RPG and that's that (and that I'm a troll, so that invalidates anything I say automatically), the most fun one is "it's better than Bethesda's Fallout, so it's an RPG!".

Fallout 3 is an RPG. So is Fallout 4. New Vegas is just better, which is why the other two are lambasted and New Vegas is praised. But all three of them are RPGs of different quality. When people say "Bethesda doesn't make RPGs" what they really are trying to say is "their games are terrible RPGs".

 

[janior]

fuck rpgs

 

[SkiNNyBane]

Quake Champions is the best rpg. My account has reached level 25. It has unlockable lore and your party members are real people you find online. As you level up you get different colors for your armor.

 

[janior]

nice

 

[Delterius]

RPGs are games I like. F:NV might be an RPG once I play it. But not until then.

 

[Master]

If you liked F3 you will like NV. It's basically more of the same, with better writing.

 

[thesheeep]

If you liked F3 you will like NV. It's basically more of the same, with better writing.

Quite unlikely.
Most people either like one or the other.

Usually, the fools like Fallout 3 & 4 because of the theme park structure and you can see something awesome around every corner, even if it makes 0 sense.
The people with some standards prefer F:NV due to the superior worldbuilding that actually makes a modicum of sense. Of course, the fools don't like because it doesn't shower you with something awesome every two steps.

Of course F:NV is not a pure RPG, what idiot would ever claim that? Who is responsible for this weird thread title?!
It's an FPS/RPG hybrid, like Deus Ex... and I should really replay it some day.

 

[Roguey]

If you find that running around constitutes twitch gameplay, I would suggest consulting a specialist because you clearly have some nontrivial neurological disorder.

The square-strafe dance you can do (and are expected to do in some titles) in real time blobbers means those aren't RPGs.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

What more can I say itt? Nobody is disputing my points, just repeating that F:NV is an RPG and that's that (and that I'm a troll, so that invalidates anything I say automatically), the most fun one is "it's better than Bethesda's Fallout, so it's an RPG!". I wonder why nobody is defending Alpha Protocol, which is basically the same thing, but I did say it also isn't an RPG. "Attempt at reality bending: The Thread".

You use weasel words and move the goalpost all the time, go over the top RPG list and explicitly name all games aren't RPGs so people can argue properly.

We went over this earlier. He claims that action RPG is an oxymoron because RPG is a style of gameplay. He claims Gothic and Risen and Bloodlines and Morrowind and Ultima Underworld and Deus Ex and presumably Ultima 7 are not RPGs. He just says people are getting butthurt about New Vegas when he runs out of ways to defend his thesis.

This is Lacrymas doesn’t understand how to make argument: the thread! “If we assume that my base assertion about the nature of RPGs is true, then I am right and the rest of you are wrong!” When challenged, repeat fundamental assertion as fact; when asked for proof, make a list of games that fit your definition. When pushed, create nonsense binary oppositions like, “if an action game like New Vegas can be an RPG, then nothing turn based or even RTwP can be an RPG,” while providing no explanation beyond, “because it violates my definition of an RPG.” But that’s just, like, circular reasoning, man.

What bugs me about this is that the whole thing reeks of intellectual dishonesty. Lacrymas doth protest too much. He claims ARPG is a nonsense category and wonders: if Gothic or New Vegas are RPGs, then why isn’t Doom an RPG? Yet as recently as two years ago (cited earlier ITT), he very much believed ARPGs were a real category and had no trouble understanding the definition or why some titles with action gameplay were RPGs and others weren’t. He states he was wrong back then; I’d very much like to know about his Road to Damascus moment when he realized the TRUTH, and why that has made him incapable of making distinctions he once had no trouble discerning. My charitable explanation is that he thinks he needs to advance the strongest possible form of his argument (strongest meaning most extreme) while doing his best to deny or ignore any ambiguity or internal contradictions. But you aren’t doing your own thesis any justice if you refuse to take the counter arguments seriously.

He acts dumbfounded when people disagree with his definition of what makes an RPG, pretending that any other definition is risible or incoherent. I guess he can’t remember that this is the most hotly debated term on this entire forum and there is never, ever a consensus about what it means.

Here’s another intellectually dishonest argument that has been advanced by a number of folks ITT:

“Reactivity, C&C, loot, extensive dialogue trees with lots of options, mutually exclusive quests with branching narratives, and tasks that can be accomplished via multiple solutions—the classic stealth, speech or murder troika—can’t be part of the definition of an RPG because you could literally have those in any genre of game!”

Oookay, but if you then say, “therefore character building/progression and menu mediated combat define RPGs,” you simply aren’t holding your own argument up to the same level of scrutiny. Character progression and menu mediated combat are already in every other genre of game. They are the most copied RPG elements out there. So if existence in other genres is disqualifying, they are disqualified, too. This is where Lacrymas says, “well, but MOBAs are viewed as their own discrete genre.” Which would be fine except you could say the same thing of ARPGs: they are viewed as their own discrete sub-genre.

In truth, you could put any RPG elements in another genre, that doesn’t stop them from being RPG elements. This is equally true of character progression and build based reactivity (or anything else on the above list). When you have all of the elements I listed plus action gameplay, you have an action RPG.

If you want to say that you believe RPGs are just a subset of strategy games, so anything that doesn’t play like a strategy game is excluded, just say that. Don’t pretend you’ve deduced the fundamental secrets of the universe.

 

[Quillon]

When I was a newfuck here I saw a thread by a pretentious fuck, calling Witcher 3's writing pretentious, it was very amusing oxymoron situation. Lacrymas haven't disappointed me since, if Lacrymas ever stops posting here Codex would lose a lot, so back the fuck off guys! The last time Lacrymas got collective backlash, he didn't post for TWO WHOLE DAYS! The heart of Codex had skipped a beat.

 

[Lacrymas]

A lot of verbiage that just shows you simply don't understand how genres as categories are defined and reached. The most telling thing in the entire thread that shows this is simply bias and wishful thinking is how nobody is defending Alpha Protocol and why people are saying Bethesda's Fallouts aren't RPGs, but F:NV is. Alpha Protocol is basically the same thing as F:NV - character development, stats, branching narrative, quests, etc. The same things people are saying makes F:NV an RPG. When called out they say "but Alpha Protocol doesn't have enough character development and F:NV is better than Bethesda, so it's an RPG!", if that isn't arbitrary I don't know what is. The "if F:NV is an RPG, then Fallout 1 can't be one" is exactly the most damning thing of all, because they aren't the same thing.

 

[Fairfax]

What bugs me about this is that the whole thing reeks of intellectual dishonesty.

I didn't even read his arguments or the thread, but that's quite rich coming from someone who said Gold Box games aren't RPGs.

 

[Elex]

RPG aren’t RPG.