RPGs have become routine.

[Tihskael]

we grew up.

As a kid I could goof around in a game and be amazed by it due to my lack of experiences. Now I'm not really amazed and am more interested in the intricacies and the details. I want to see all the content, which includes to uncover the whole map and exhaust all dialogue options. I take satisfaction from 100% completing something.

I am not sure if this is what you mean but I see no negative change in that, it's simply that my childlike wonder gave way to a more methodical approach.

This is exactly what I hate about most RPGs, this is what is putting me off from finishing Risen. This is like going to shopping, crossing off things from your checklist, fucking tedious and boring, not to mention every other single person having the same experience as you or maybe the option A or B you might have chosen. Say what you will about Bethseda games, but I am fucking serious, except the major quest lines and side quest lines excluded, there is a good deal of room to have an experience that is uniquely yours, with a lot of things happening on their own beneath the hood. For example, in Risen, in the first city you go to, every NPC with whom you can talk to is either someone who gives you a quest OR someone has some role to play in a quest in the future, giving the world a huge sense of uhmmm game-iness. But here in fucking Skyrim, I can have the worshippers of an evil cult show up to my wedding, just because IT WORKS!

 

[NecroLord]

we grew up.

As a kid I could goof around in a game and be amazed by it due to my lack of experiences. Now I'm not really amazed and am more interested in the intricacies and the details. I want to see all the content, which includes to uncover the whole map and exhaust all dialogue options. I take satisfaction from 100% completing something.

I am not sure if this is what you mean but I see no negative change in that, it's simply that my childlike wonder gave way to a more methodical approach.

This is exactly what I hate about most RPGs, this is what is putting me off from finishing Risen. This is like going to shopping, crossing off things from your checklist, fucking tedious and boring, not to mention every other single person having the same experience as you or maybe the option A or B you might have chosen. Say what you will about Bethseda games, but I am fucking serious, except the major quest lines and side quest lines excluded, there is a good deal of room to have an experience that is uniquely yours, with a lot of things happening on their own beneath the hood. For example, in Risen, in the first city you go to, every NPC with whom you can talk to is either someone who gives you a quest OR someone has some role to play in a quest in the future, giving the world a huge sense of uhmmm game-iness. But here in fucking Skyrim, I can have the worshippers of an evil cult show up to my wedding, just because IT WORKS!

Where are her clothes?

 

[Butter]

It's a traditional Betazoid wedding.

 

[Gregz]

Reject modernity.
Embrace tradition.

 

[NecroLord]

Reject modernity.
Embrace tradition.

 

[thesecret1]

Then how come I enjoyed Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos as if I were 13 again, pouring a hundred hours into the game, even putting more hours into it than into my freelance job where I bill my clients by the hour?
The game CAPTURED me. It had the magic, the same magic I've been looking for since the early 00s, the magic that vanished from the industry at some point but was recaptured by a bunch of Polish modders who knew exactly what they were doing.

Same thing. It was an amazing experience. That said, I absolutely did perform grid searching across the entirety of the map, leaving no stone unturned and no mob unkilled, picking up literally anything I could get my hands on And I exhausted everyone's dialogue twice or thrice over, just to be sure they weren't hiding anything from me. I don't think there's a problem with 100% a game and milking it for every last bit of content. The problem is that in most modern RPGs, this content tends to be shit.

 

[Piotrovitz]

I kinda envy you being able to be excited and drawn into some good game for dozens of hours - I know I can't do that myself, that's why I play something only once every couple of weeks/months. In a way, limiting myself from overdosing on poor cRPGs, I enjoy the good ones like I should - first run of Underrail was fcking amazing experience.

Thanks for proving my point, dude.

You said your first run of Underrail was fucking amazing. So good games still exist. Good games still capture you and give you enjoyment.

Both points can be true at the same time.

We require games to be exceedingly excellent in order to experience the same levels of joy as our virginal years. The drugs analogy works well with video games. The more games we play, the more difficult it is to impress us.

Thanks, that's exactly what I've tried to convey - good cRPGs are still out there, that's for sure, but it's hard to conjure the magic that has been felt during the formative years. Desensitization is the keyword here, hence the drugs analogy - the more you take/play, the harder it is to impress you over time, and you expect/demand the next shot/game to hit you the same way as previous ones.

There are passionates like Jarl, who can find a modern game and enjoy the hell out of it, like you did playing e.g. Arcanum for the first time, but for every guy like him, there are dozens of people here whose expectations went through the roof, just by playing every cRPG for the last 20 years - in that case, the bar for them is so high now, that even if something decent/semi-decent will come out, they will still piss all over it, nitpicking every thing they can find.

Still, that doesn't override the main factor why cRPGs have become routine/stale - retarderd devs/fanbase, consoles, streamlining the shit out of everything etc - the thing I am talking about is just one factor. Shitting on devs is easy, but admitting to oneself that boredom/tiredness has crept in is more difficult thing.

 

[ropetight]

I kinda envy you being able to be excited and drawn into some good game for dozens of hours - I know I can't do that myself, that's why I play something only once every couple of weeks/months. In a way, limiting myself from overdosing on poor cRPGs, I enjoy the good ones like I should - first run of Underrail was fcking amazing experience.

Thanks for proving my point, dude.

You said your first run of Underrail was fucking amazing. So good games still exist. Good games still capture you and give you enjoyment.

Both points can be true at the same time.

We require games to be exceedingly excellent in order to experience the same levels of joy as our virginal years. The drugs analogy works well with video games. The more games we play, the more difficult it is to impress us.

Thanks, that's exactly what I've tried to convey - good cRPGs are still out there, that's for sure, but it's hard to conjure the magic that has been felt during the formative years. Desensitization is the keyword here, hence the drugs analogy - the more you take/play, the harder it is to impress you over time, and you expect/demand the next shot/game to hit you the same way as previous ones.

There are passionates like Jarl, who can find a modern game and enjoy the hell out of it, like you did playing e.g. Arcanum for the first time, but for every guy like him, there are dozens of people here whose expectations went through the roof, just by playing every cRPG for the last 20 years - in that case, the bar for them is so high now, that even if something decent/semi-decent will come out, they will still piss all over it, nitpicking every thing they can find.

Still, that doesn't override the main factor why cRPGs have become routine/stale - retarderd devs/fanbase, consoles, streamlining the shit out of everything etc - the thing I am talking about is just one factor. Shitting on devs is easy, but admitting to oneself that boredom/tiredness has crept in is more difficult thing.

Oversimplification and reversal of thesis.
Talking how lack of innovation, love for detail and general soul that is put to goddamn shovelware is actually sign of boredom or oversaturation is in the line of speak that we would surely like The Last Jedi same as A New Hope if only we were 10 or so.
Surprise, today kids aren't giving two shits about that junk, so it is safe to presume we wouldn't either.
And people are still watching A New Hope.

As JarlFrank said, games we like from the past were not run of the mill or the hundredth reiteration of the same idea.
Sure, I played lots of subpar games, they were interesting at first, but somehow great games remained instead of them.
I don't even remember names of the Dungeon Master or Lands of Lore clones I played.
It is not because I was tired, bored or whatever - they were not on the same level as games that inspired them.

Fallout was like no game before, even if it had influences from all over the place - and at the time I was playing games for more than 10 years, and I played my share of RPGs.
Same with Wizardry, M&M, Baldur's Gate, Jagged Alliance and other greats.
Those were extraordinary games in their time, and they still have their charm and things that work for them despite the age.

Lots of people on this forum like Underrail, Knights of Chalice, Legend of Grimrock, ATOM and some other games that were made in last 10 years.
It is not because they look like something from someones misty past - there is actually something great in them.

The truth is today is much easier to make a game with all the tools and assets, so lots of people are making them and there is a shitload of them.
But it is not easier to make great game, because talent is still rare, so there are few.

 

[JarlFrank]

Even if the claim were true that our standards have gone up - why haven't developers risen to meet them?

Instead, they have stagnated and in many cases declined.

There simply are no games that reach the same level as the classics. Not games that surpass them - not even games that are at the same level!

 

[Tyranicon]

Even if the claim were true that our standards have gone up - why haven't developers risen to meet them?

Instead, they have stagnated and in many cases declined.

There simply are no games that reach the same level as the classics. Not games that surpass them - not even games that are at the same level!

The but honest answer to this is there is simply no financial incentive for developers to do so. cRPGs are already niche, and going after the quality-hungry grognard audience is hyper niche. Only sufficiently monocled indies (with little business sense) will even attempt to do that.

Why put so much effort into your games when you can make a cookie-cutter game du jour, slap on RPG elements, and shovel it out to streamers so they can push it on their viewers?

Gaming these days is about minimal effort -> FOMO/gamification strategies -> whale-focused profits.

Disgusting.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

today I learned that jeff vogel's games are some of the greatest ever made

 

[JarlFrank]

Game development should not be seen as a business, but an artistic endeavor.

We need renaissance-style patronage back...

 

[kangaxx]

Clearing maps of FOW and trawling for content isn't a bad thing per se. Large sections of the original BG were based around this kind of game loop, and that is still miles better than most of the tripe released today. I have to agree with the people saying its a quality problem rather than "getting old".

 

[Hace El Oso]

Then how come I enjoyed Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos as if I were 13 again, pouring a hundred hours into the game, even putting more hours into it than into my freelance job where I bill my clients by the hour?
The game CAPTURED me. It had the magic, the same magic I've been looking for since the early 00s, the magic that vanished from the industry at some point but was recaptured by a bunch of Polish modders who knew exactly what they were doing.

I’d heard of it, but hadn’t looked into it at all.



Going to download it tonight. As the poet once said, “Dis gon b gud”.

 

[anvi]

Game development should not be seen as a business, but an artistic endeavor.

We need renaissance-style patronage back...

Yes! Game studios used to be more like rock bands. It wasn't a career back then, there were no qualifications and not many success stories. People worked crazy hours and slogged through weekends and birthdays and holidays. They seemed to be driven by the ideas themselves and the games they could create. And it attracted people who were naturally suited to it. And programming savant type people who could create whole new genres and whole new engines. It was people really throwing everything they had at it...

And now it's the opposite.

 

[Tyranicon]

Then how come I enjoyed Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos as if I were 13 again, pouring a hundred hours into the game, even putting more hours into it than into my freelance job where I bill my clients by the hour?
The game CAPTURED me. It had the magic, the same magic I've been looking for since the early 00s, the magic that vanished from the industry at some point but was recaptured by a bunch of Polish modders who knew exactly what they were doing.

I’d heard of it, but hadn’t looked into it at all.



Going to download it tonight. As the poet once said, “Dis gon b gud”.

Yeah, looks like Gothic 2 is on sale anyways, so might finally give this a try.

Codex peeps, should I replay Gothic 2 or just go straight into the mod?

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Games can become work, instead of joy, if you lose sight of what you really play them for - mentally misunderstand what you originally enjoyed - or obsess over a genre when perhaps the real pull was never exclusive to the genre to begin with. Some normies identify more with the prestigious ego image of themselves being an 'RPG fan' while not really having the most essential thing - fun - they should just disgard fucks given and play Animal Crossing if it's what they genuinely enjoy (i.e. that Tamoor guy who complained Dark Souls didn't have an "easy mode"). I used to fixate on RPGs because it seemed like the 'home' of nerd stuff i.e. fantasy/SF, but realised what I love in fantasy/SF is sometimes done better outside RPGs than in them; a random blind playthrough of a PS1 survival horror scenario like Dino Crisis arguably hits the story-fag and atmos-fag itch better than most RPGs. Remember a while back when lots of us agreed that "boomer shooters" actually capture and grasp fantasy better than most fantasy RPGs? Stuff like Thief and Tomb Raider captured 'dungeon-ness' better than most RPGs.

Folks should examine what has really ignited their interests/passion in entertainment, do it honestly, don't flinch, then you discover suprising stuff sometimes. It's just like any spiritual work; pull down your fortress of preconceptions, you sometimes get new insights, paradigms. The Codex does examine it's tastes in minute details of what works, but I think you can get re-entrenched in a deeper paradigm soemtimes. Mainstream people wanting to enter a hobby obssess over lists and completionism instead of just playing what they FEEL good about. RPGCodex has more self-reflective, insightful, prestigious taste, where these people can lose thousands of days to other's reccomendations, but if you truly look at the legendary RPGCodex Top 70 RPGs poll from 2014 (that inspired many of us), for a lot of the genre, the sad truth is when you have played a dozen GOATs, there is a big dropoff; the pool of actual greatness is small.

Having played stuff like Morrowind, Planescape, VTMB, etc, the genre is not inspiring me any more (at the moment), contrasted with those greats, because I enjoy that stuff on multiple levels, and little else has ever achieved anything close. I'm in this for the world-building, feeling of living inside another world. There hasn't been anything like that in a decade. We really don't want a second job on top of the soul crushing shit many of us have to do, so torturing yourself playing the genre in search of that experience, or in the name of solidarity with your other geek interests, is pointless. I haven't been able to stand even an hour of this Pathfinder/Solasta-era stuff, with generic fantasy settings, hours of busywork in worlds that aren't worth the effort. Pointless side content might be alright if there was something there I felt I was learning; a compelling underworld, an artistic vision, a scientifically plausible space empire, or a metaphysical vision of some kind.

I'm not a combat guy; I don't enjoy it unless I have a telos or reason for enjoying it, so there isn't much left for me. I realised watching my favorite sci-fi shows that the best combat scenes were underpinned by human drama, plausible consequences, heart. Picard getting outplayed by Romulans and outplaying them in turn, set against the backdrop of the Romulan Empire purging dissidents, or Londo Mollari watching his rival's homeworld get firebombed with chilling regret, is way more compelling than empty pew pew alone, I realised pretty early - the science of a plasma weapon may be badass but makes for a meaningless scene without your Hornblower/Jack Aubrey pathos. Modern RPGs don't make me feel anything; why the fuck should I care about what happens?

 

[Ravielsk]

Game development should not be seen as a business, but an artistic endeavor.

We need renaissance-style patronage back...

Art and business(or rather profitability) are not mutually exclusive. Games were always made with the intent of making money. The core difference is that in the 90s nobody was under the delusion that their game is going be the "next big thing" and were more than happy when it sold around 1 mil. copies. Today however every AAA game is made as if the world is supposed to stop on the day of its release and that necessitates insanely inflated budgets and subsequent sales to recoup those budgets and still make money(10+ million units). So the games themselves also have to be designed as this hodge podge of everything and nothing to even have a chance of selling that many copies.

They can absolutely make money with a smaller more focused title but they do not want to because that would mean settling for some money instead of all the money.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I've suggested it a few times before, but can't the Codex consolidate it's tastes/assets, and make something themslves?

Or give patreon money like some renaissance

to a team and tell them to indulge their instincts. Hire Chris Avellone.

 

[Butter]

Even if you took only 4-5 of the most prestigious Codexers, there'd still be no consensus on what kind of monocled game to make, unless you can find a way to do Deus Ex, Arcanum, Wizardry, and Gothic all at the same time.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I think you could play to the strengths of different codexers, like say Lyric Suite on the soundtrack, conceptual elements, story, JarlFrank writing, encounter design, doing atmospheric/art direction, etc. You would have to have people go along with the project against their own personal preferences to some degree, but I think we can agree on broad generalities - like whether one personally leans Catholic, Protestant, Platonic, Dharmic, Pagan, Jungian, Neitzschean or Perennialist, you can agree that we are in sore need of an affirmation of life, The Good, deeper forms of meaning and personla spiritual revelation, that certain things should be celebrated, revitalisation of Western culture. We need not mirror thewoke companies in the inverse, and make ourselves polemicists like them, but a degree of tasteful criticism of current social hypocricy would be compelling in an industry of pure decline (and in the tradition of the Codex). Without being overt or too on-the-nose, it would be a rare voice of refreshing dissent that people might stumble upon with shock and awe. If some people must go unsatisfied for now, subdue themselves for the greater project, just develop another game using their perspective next.

 

[ropetight]

Game development should not be seen as a business, but an artistic endeavor.

We need renaissance-style patronage back...

Yes! Game studios used to be more like rock bands. It wasn't a career back then, there were no qualifications and not many success stories. People worked crazy hours and slogged through weekends and birthdays and holidays. They seemed to be driven by the ideas themselves and the games they could create. And it attracted people who were naturally suited to it. And programming savant type people who could create whole new genres and whole new engines. It was people really throwing everything they had at it...

And now it's the opposite.

Frank Zappa said something similar happened in music industry - executives that "knew" better than artists what is music.
So they started making formulaic bullshit that resembled their ideas about what music is.
It is especially funny when he says that artists had it better with cigar chumping old guys that didn't know shit about modern music than with bunch of hip young executives that grew up on 60s music.

 

[Rincewind]

When you talk about "players" in the first post, you're really describing yourself, aren't you? Surely you haven't met all the "players" out there...

There are a few solutions to your problem:

- Turn off the GPS (quest markers, item highlighting, etc.)
- Draw your own maps
- Play on higher (highest) difficulty
- Don't rush things — this is supposed to be a relaxing hobby, not a job
- Curb your OCD / completionist tendencies — this is not a contest
- Play older games (don't dismiss games from early/mid-80s either)
- If you're not having fun, stop, then come back to it another day

Usually, it's not really the games; it's the "player".

 

[Louis_Cypher]

do Deus Ex, Arcanum, Wizardry, and Gothic all at the same time

Aim high and achieve whatever you achieve. The struggle itself will be glorious.

Sometimes when reading the Codex, a vision of what people here could be achieve, with their combined intellect, opens up clearly. What that tells me is I know it can be done, in some Platonic form the Codex has already made a Deux Ex/VTMB/Arcanum/Gothic. I know the Codex can do it, that it contains that potentiality.

I used to really appreciate the visual effects work in sci-fi TV shows from the 90s. They might show an alien cityscape in the background of a scene. The graphical element would be seen as primative by today's standards; maybe a matte painting or something. Yet nobody today tries to show the same scale, in TV of the equivalent budget; they are afraid, cowed, scared of failure. 90s shows were not afraid of their imagination exceeding their budget. Audiences, geeks, used to take the intent of what they were showing, rather than the result, and fill in the blanks.

It also would be interesting to hire 5 industry vets, a small support team, and tell them to go wild. Do what game they always wanted when they were 30.

Also, why develop a 100 hour game? Why not make something the length of a PS1 survival horror? 12 hours, does not overstay it's welcome. Fewer, more meaningful encounters? Could be a new genre for all we know; the short rich RPG, as opposed to the bloated 80 hour 'content', put a lighter inventory like Resident Evil in, forcing players to drop potions to pick up the fire extinguisher, puzzle elements, etc, mixing the genres we agree get dungeon level design right like Thief, etc. Why must RPGCodex make an RPG, rather than some new acronym like a PPG (prestigious playing game.)

 

[Falksi]

You can also test this by playing an old RPG for the first time and seeing if it excites you more than the modern shit. I played Wizardry IV for the first time this year, and it's leagues more compelling than something like WotR or Wasteland 3.

Throw Warsong into that equation for me. A 1991 SEGA Megadrive strategy RPG that I played for the first time around 18 moths ago and was the first RPG in years I played straight through almost twice (first time round I got around 2/3rds of the way in, but lost too many characters so had to start again).

Loved it, and it does Fire Emblem better than any of the Fire Emblem games I played. I tried the modern remake after the second run, and they've watered the difficulty down to an embarrassing level. I gave up on the newer version very early.