RPGs have become routine.

[Jedi Master Radek]

It was always like that, all those Doom clones, or Roguelikes.

DOOM clones were just genuine clones that literary copy pasted DOOM with little to no changes of their own. The term accurately described what those games were and what they were trying to do design wise.
The thing is though that shooters eventually diverged enough from DOOM for the term "doom clone" to die as it was no longer accurate to call something like Unreal a "doom clone". With the whole souls shit the term is used to describe games like Crash Bandicoot or Spyro. Not only is it completely meaningless but also massively misleading because its used so broadly a vaguely that it basically describes everything and nothing.

But weren't there people who even after the term FPS was coined were still inappropriate using the term "doom clone" to describe games that should not be called that way? With more people using the internet nowadays it's just easier to come across morons and get unnecessary upset.

 

[NecroLord]

"Doom clone" is incredibly moronic,coined by game journalists who were already harbingers of great decline.
Doom paved the way for FPS as a genre. Heretic,Hexen,Quake,Blood,Duke,Shadow Warrior,all classics that followed in the greatness of Doom.
Doom is simply put a cultural phenomenon.

 

[Rincewind]

"Doom clone" is incredibly moronic,coined by game journalists who were already harbingers of great decline.
Doom paved the way for FPS as a genre. Heretic,Hexen,Quake,Blood,Duke,Shadow Warrior,all classics that followed in the greatness of Doom.
Doom is simply put a cultural phenomenon.

I don't think the concept of "first-person shooter" existed before 2000 or so. It would be easy to verify by going through a bunch of magazine scans, but can't be bothered. I remember we just used to simply call them "Doom clones" and that was it — because that is what they were, trying to ride on the enormous financial success of Doom. I don't think they *wanted* to diverge much from Doom, actually.

This is an article from 2017, but here we go:

Loaded with taboo imagery, ultra-moddable thanks to id’s decision to store game data such as level assets separately from engine data as ‘WAD’ files, and equipped with four-player multiplayer to boot, Doom was a phenomenal success. Such was its impact that before ‘FPS’ became an accepted term, many in the development community used ‘Doom clone’ as shorthand for any first-person game involving gunplay. No game can claim to define a genre for long, however, and id’s work would attract plenty of imitators and rivals in the years to come.

 

[kangaxx]

A quick scan suggests journos were calling Half Life a "3D shooter" in 1998. This one is example and there seem to be a couple of others.

https://www.hl-inside.ru/magazines/pc-gamer-uk/PC-Gamer_1998-12_63/#&gid=1&pid=5

 

[Ravielsk]

But weren't there people who even after the term FPS was coined were still inappropriate using the term "doom clone" to describe games that should not be called that way? With more people using the internet nowadays it's just easier to come across morons and get unnecessary upset.

Irrelevant. Just because the old inaccurate term did not completely disappear from everyone's dictionary after a new more accurate one emerged does not change anything about it being replaced. Besides the "doom clone" term as broad as it was back in the day was never as groosly overused as "RPG" of "souls-like" is today. Nobody in 1995 would call Might and Magic or Wizardry a "doom clone" just because they were played in first person and featured hitscan enemies. However today any game that has a stat screen can and will be labeled as a RPG even if said stat screen is the only thing even remotely "RPG" about said game.

Yes, you could always find an idiot who would claim otherwise but while in the past that sort of stupid was exceptionally rare these days its the absolute norm. Just go on steam and click on the RPG tag and see how many games on that list are absolutely not "roleplaying games" to see how warped people's perception of the term really is.

 

[JarlFrank]

A quick scan suggests journos were calling Half Life a "3D shooter" in 1998. This one is example and there seem to be a couple of others.

https://www.hl-inside.ru/magazines/pc-gamer-uk/PC-Gamer_1998-12_63/#&gid=1&pid=5

In Germany we called them "Ego Shooter" which seems like a direct translation of First Person Shooter, but it already was an established term by the time Half Life came out.

 

[Norfleet]

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.

Because if it only lasts 12 hours, most of us aren't children. It's just too easy to wait it out. The prospect of being bored for only 12 hours is not enough to justify the hassle of acquiring a game that will only last for that long, especially since the effort of doing so is fixed and doesn't actually depend on the length of the game. So if I'm gonna go through that much hassle, it better be worth more than just 12 hours. Otherwise I could just out-wait the boredom.

 

[Faarbaute]

To put the discussion back on topic, I'd like to give an example, from a somewhat recent RPG that I played and otherwise enjoyed quite a lot (at least initially), namely Pathfinder:Kingmaker. An example that I believe illustrates at least one way this (IMO) degenerate playstyle can come about.

If you've played it, you'll be familiar with this already but if you haven't,

Spoiler

Over your travels, you will come across items labeled as artifact fragments. As the name suggests, they are pieces of powerful artifacts, that can be reforged once you've claimed all the pieces for any one particular artifact.

Sounds good right? Well, the problem is that there are no clues as to the whereabouts of these fragments. There is no mystery and there are no puzzles to solve. They are just scattered haphazardly across the entire game world.
(there were, as far as I can remember, even pieces that were actually not available to the player due to either oversight or bugs, in early versions, but that's its own issue)

Now, your choice here is to either carry on as normal, and hope that you get lucky finding the rest of the pieces, perhaps hanging on to the hope that the game has got to let you in on a clue or something sometime, right? Or you start searching every inch of every map until you've found the pieces by process of elimination. That, or you fire up your browser and check online, where the pieces are located.

The best part is that in the process of reforging an item, you are rewarded by the game with CONTENT in the form of STORIES about other peoples actual adventures, lol.

It's some of the most retarded design I have ever seen. It has been designed in a way that encourages, nay, expects the player to disengage with the adventure, and to instead engage in that routine, checklist behaviour, I alluded to earlier.

I mean, just look at this shit. How misaligned mustn't your priorities be as an RPG dev if you think this is a good idea.

 

[JarlFrank]

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.

Because if it only lasts 12 hours, most of us aren't children. It's just too easy to wait it out. The prospect of being bored for only 12 hours is not enough to justify the hassle of acquiring a game that will only last for that long, especially since the effort of doing so is fixed and doesn't actually depend on the length of the game. So if I'm gonna go through that much hassle, it better be worth more than just 12 hours. Otherwise I could just out-wait the boredom.

I don't know about you, but I deliberately seek out games I enjoy as a fun activity, not as something to simply kill boredom with.

I also don't see how there's any hassle involved in playing a game, especially nowadays. You buy it on Steam or GoG, click "Install" on the launcher, wait for it to install, and click play. Where's the hassle? How is there effort involved in acquiring the game? And 12 hours isn't even that short. I played action games that lasted that long, or even shorter.

 

[lycanwarrior]

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

We need renaissance-style patronage back...

Historically, "art" has been funded by rulers, religious institutions and other wealthy individuals/entities. Aka the "patronage" system.

Nowadays, art is also funded by the government.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

art is also funded by the government.

and 100% of it is gay

you guys know that the EU, Canada, and such already do what you're suggesting, right?
What do you think the result is?
I'll give you a hint:

oh this dialogue
is this a comedy?

here's your celtic prince bro

(the king is the white guy in the foreground on the left, fyi)

I'm not sure how much of this I can take guys.
The animations are good is about the only nice thing I can say.

forgot to mention that if you're an EU citizen, you were forced to subsidize this abomination that shits all over an EU country's culture/mythology
http://gatosalvajestudio.com/home/

scroll to the bottom to see all the EU funding crap

I hope you guys loved Mass Effect Andromeda btw, because it's a result of the same program in Canada.

 

[lycanwarrior]

art is also funded by the government.

and 100% of it is gay

you guys know that the EU, Canada, and such already do what you're suggesting, right?
What do you think the result is?
I'll give you a hint:

oh this dialogue
is this a comedy?

here's your celtic prince bro

(the king is the white guy in the foreground on the left, fyi)

I'm not sure how much of this I can take guys.
The animations are good is about the only nice thing I can say.

forgot to mention that if you're an EU citizen, you were forced to subsidize this abomination that shits all over an EU country's culture/mythology
http://gatosalvajestudio.com/home/

scroll to the bottom to see all the EU funding crap

I hope you guys loved Mass Effect Andromeda btw, because it's a result of the same program in Canada.

Yeah I even seen some posters on Reddit basically advocating for the government to take over the games industry and be the final arbiters of what games get made and released.

Similar to "Obama phones", maybe we'll get "Biden games" lmao.

 

[lycanwarrior]

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.

Don't insult Elden Ring/CP2077 like that lmao just kidding.

 

[ropetight]

art is also funded by the government.

and 100% of it is gay

you guys know that the EU, Canada, and such already do what you're suggesting, right?
What do you think the result is?
I'll give you a hint:

oh this dialogue
is this a comedy?

here's your celtic prince bro

(the king is the white guy in the foreground on the left, fyi)

I'm not sure how much of this I can take guys.
The animations are good is about the only nice thing I can say.

forgot to mention that if you're an EU citizen, you were forced to subsidize this abomination that shits all over an EU country's culture/mythology
http://gatosalvajestudio.com/home/

scroll to the bottom to see all the EU funding crap

I hope you guys loved Mass Effect Andromeda btw, because it's a result of the same program in Canada.

Gato Salvaje - those are shifty cucks that made speedy backstep when that chick accused Avellone of some bullshit that is supposed to be career-ending sin in the eyes of the woke.
After Avellone finally sued twitter accusers, all went quiet.
Who knows if there is anything new in that case...

 

[Norfleet]

I don't know about you, but I deliberately seek out games I enjoy as a fun activity, not as something to simply kill boredom with.

Sweet summer child, you still enjoy things. That will pass. Remember that each game you play will be the worst game you've ever played: Every better game, you've already finished. Thus you always reach for the next least-bad option, which will thus be the worst game you've ever played. At some point in your life, you exhaust everything you actually might qualify as "like" and from that point on, everything else is just an alternative to even worse boredom. Being adult is about picking between the options you hate least. Liking things is for children.

I also don't see how there's any hassle involved in playing a game, especially nowadays. You buy it on Steam or GoG, click "Install" on the launcher, wait for it to install, and click play. Where's the hassle? How is there effort involved in acquiring the game?

Leaving aside the fact that paying for something means you now have to go and secure and sanitize your payment path, meaning opening a set of accounts just to deal with this one financial transaction (for which you will only be extracting 12 hours out of), there's also the general hassle of having to learn to play this entirely new game only to have everything you learned about it become obsolete 12 hours later. It's just a lot of hassle for something that doesn't even last.

 

[kangaxx]

You set up a new bank account each time you buy a game?!

 

[Norfleet]

You set up a new bank account each time you buy a game?!

Well, I don't BUY games, but yes, I have to setup a new financial pathway everytime I buy something. Otherwise security would be compromised.

 

[kangaxx]

You set up a new bank account each time you buy a game?!

Well, I don't BUY games, but yes, I have to setup a new financial pathway everytime I buy something. Otherwise security would be compromised.

I think this goes some way to explaining your negative feeling towards new acquisitions...

 

[Heroic Liberator]

You set up a new bank account each time you buy a game?!

Daily reminder that you're talking to

But you know what's even scarier? Sleep also kills you. When you go to sleep and your consciousness ends, that's it, you're dead. A fresh copy of you is rebooted in the morning from backup, but the original you is gone. When you have insomnia like I do, you get to observe this process happening to others, and believe me, you notice that the person who wakes up is not actually a perfectly accurate copy of the person who went to sleep. Most people won't notice it, though, because they, themselves, are also copies. But I do. Because I don't sleep. Just goes to show, the copy doesn't even have to be a particularly good one to pass, as most people won't live longer than a day to notice anyway.

 

[Saravan]

Have players simply become too savvy, allowing them to quickly find the optimal solution? Is it a change in attitude, amongst players in general? Was it MMORPGs?

Cause most RPGs have the same builds.
If it's a one character game (Fallout, Atom RPG, etc etc)
>normal difficulty fighter mode
>broken magic build that's hard to get running
>rogue that sucks
>if talker is viable, best build because it bypasses the levels.

If it's a party RPG (Wizardry, Might and Magic, Legends of Grimrock)
>frontline fighters
>one rogue
>rest mages
>99.99% of variation of above is what type of fighter or mage your team has.

Combat just became the same routine. Sure it's fun and I do enjoy it, but it's becoming the same song and dance. A solved problem. AOE weak enemies, tanks control the field, and rogues use critical attacks. There's variations and alterations, and of course you can be sub-optiomal and have shit builds, but it's the same idea. I myself cycle between stealth/beat-em ups and platformers with RPGs/adventure games, as a sort of a pallete cleanser between the two

In regards to now a days, no clue. The newest game I played this year was Mark of the Ninja, cause my computer cannot run anything else

Yep, the answer to OP's question entirely depends on what lured you into RPG:s in the first place. As a proud combatfag there just isn't anything new under the sun. The genre reached its design peak a long time ago. Thus for me, it's simply over. I'm so sorry bros.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

there's zero reason to ever specialize in combat in most RPGs because 99% of encounters can be beaten through tactics/preparation, but everything outside of encounters tends to be hard checks you cannot pass otherwise

if anything, there's nowhere near enough encounters where you simply can't win if your guy sucks too much
ATOM had a couple of these, or close to them: the pizzagate cellar and the murderer fight in dead city. If you suck at combat you're going to lose before you even get to move. So in designing these types of encounters, I'd probably look at those.
Also, there was the escort the truck quest. All three of these had one thing in common: no prep time. Truck one was the worst in terms of kicking you in the balls, because nearly all buffs wear off due to time advancing.

 

[Egosphere]

To put the discussion back on topic, I'd like to give an example, from a somewhat recent RPG that I played and otherwise enjoyed quite a lot (at least initially), namely Pathfinder:Kingmaker. An example that I believe illustrates at least one way this (IMO) degenerate playstyle can come about.

If you've played it, you'll be familiar with this already but if you haven't,

Spoiler

Over your travels, you will come across items labeled as artifact fragments. As the name suggests, they are pieces of powerful artifacts, that can be reforged once you've claimed all the pieces for any one particular artifact.

Sounds good right? Well, the problem is that there are no clues as to the whereabouts of these fragments. There is no mystery and there are no puzzles to solve. They are just scattered haphazardly across the entire game world.
(there were, as far as I can remember, even pieces that were actually not available to the player due to either oversight or bugs, in early versions, but that's its own issue)

Now, your choice here is to either carry on as normal, and hope that you get lucky finding the rest of the pieces, perhaps hanging on to the hope that the game has got to let you in on a clue or something sometime, right? Or you start searching every inch of every map until you've found the pieces by process of elimination. That, or you fire up your browser and check online, where the pieces are located.

The best part is that in the process of reforging an item, you are rewarded by the game with CONTENT in the form of STORIES about other peoples actual adventures, lol.

It's some of the most retarded design I have ever seen. It has been designed in a way that encourages, nay, expects the player to disengage with the adventure, and to instead engage in that routine, checklist behaviour, I alluded to earlier.

I mean, just look at this shit. How misaligned mustn't your priorities be as an RPG dev if you think this is a good idea.

I think simply that the design of RPGs has changed little, and so when playing 'new' games you feel like re-treading old ground that's received a new lick of paint. Structuring a game in a new creative way would probably alleviate that, but it's easier said than done. It's much easier to simply fill up a defined mold with digital content and ship it.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Yes, you could always find an idiot who would claim otherwise but while in the past that sort of stupid was exceptionally rare these days its the absolute norm. Just go on steam and click on the RPG tag and see how many games on that list are absolutely not "roleplaying games" to see how warped people's perception of the term really is.

I think devs add RPG tag just to make their games look more complex and sofisitcated than they really are.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Yes, you could always find an idiot who would claim otherwise but while in the past that sort of stupid was exceptionally rare these days its the absolute norm. Just go on steam and click on the RPG tag and see how many games on that list are absolutely not "roleplaying games" to see how warped people's perception of the term really is.

I think devs add RPG tag just to make their games look more complex and sofisitcated than they really are.

see: disco elysium

 

[0wca]

Trophy/achievement systems from the consoles are partly to blame for this. Achievements basically serve as a checkmark that tells that you've beaten the game, so gamers have adopted this "completionist mindset" and started doing 100% clears.

If modern RPGs weren't made in a way that they could be 100% completed in one playthrough, then they would encourage replayability.

Take VtMB for example. Finished at least once with each clan and each time I saw some new stuff that I didn't before. That's because the game locks you out of seeing everything available based on the choices you make, which is what an RPG is supposed to do - make you carve your own path.

Now the standard is that every path is more or less the same. That, in turn, makes players shelve the game as soon as they finished it once.

The games we love had what I call the 'kid in a candy store' approach. It meant you could only buy so much candy so you had to pick which ones you wanted to buy then come back next time to try different ones. The current approach is the 'rollercoaster' approach, where you buy a ticket for a ride and doing it over and over again just results in the same experience.