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rpgs that lost their magic on you

eli

Learned
Joined
Aug 30, 2020
Messages
187
does anyone has these rpgs that they enjoyed the shit out of but after some years they are just no fun anymore? and not because you realised they are shit or realised anything you just stopped so to play other games that are similar and once you played back to the old games they are just dull.

to me it is f:nv and oblivion and it is kind of weird cause i have the feeling back when i finished both of them that they are great and after analyzing those games i think that f:nv is objectively a great game while oblivion is a a reduction of previous installments in every way, yet i have zero enjoyment from f:nv and at least have some fun from oblivion.

anyway does anyone have any tips to have any kind of fun back of games you already enjoyed and completed?
 

Skdursh

Savant
Joined
Nov 27, 2018
Messages
734
Location
Slavlandia
I remember I played Mass Effect 1 and 2 when they first came out and at the time I enjoyed them a lot. Never played ME3 back then, but when the recent remasters came out I picked them up thinking I'd enjoy playing through them again and finally seeing it through to the end with the 3rd. I got bored of playing about 3 hours after starting the first remaster and haven't touched it since. Doubt I'll go back. Everything about it feels a lot more shallow than I remembered it being back in the day and I can't help but notice how the many things things that I hate about modern Bioware games started to snowball and take form with this series. Realizing that the Mass Effect series was the stepping stone that led to what they are now has kind of killed it for me.
 

Serus

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
6,681
Location
Small but great planet of Potatohole
Tip: Play good games not Oblivion. Preferably ones that are designed to be replayable - if you want to replay them, duh. Certainly games that are games not bad wanna-be-books, those are terrible when replaying. Also ones that are actually about gameplay and providing challenge.
Basically, the opposite of games you seem to be playing.
 

POOPERSCOOPER

Prophet
Joined
Mar 6, 2003
Messages
2,724
Location
California
Pretty much most RPGs, I just don't have the patience the older I get to fuck with inventory and stats or fake dialog choices.
Pillars of Eternity series have a stash instead of an inventory.

I think Pillars of Eternity made me the most depressed in my life. The number of times I fell asleep at my desk playing that game was at least 5-10. I think if they did a study asking people if they felt more or less depressed after playing Pillars of Eternity it would be like 75% saying more depressed and you would see Sawyer genuinely happy.
 

Derringer

Prophet
Joined
Jan 28, 2020
Messages
1,934
It's hard to justify playing through clones of garbage when your dopamine receptors are telling you that you are wasting your time unless you are high as shit on dopamine stimulants.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
All of the Witcher games.

Fun enough for one play through but intolerable on replays. It's really stark how fundamentally those games are walking sims, with combat that is beyond popamole and a total paucity of meaningful gameplay choices. Compare to the much maligned Skyrim with it's garbage plot and copy pasta content, nonetheless presents more varied gameplay with the simplistic options of stab draugr/shoot draugr/magic draugr.

The story is all those games have and it's fine, great even, but there's nothing supporting it underneath. Might as well just watch the cutscenes on youtube.
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2022
Messages
944
I used to really like Final Fantasy 12, but nowadays the boring RTWP 3 party member gameplay, the unfinished story, the awful pacing, and the dull characters stick out to me more.
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,530
Location
Kelethin
Most games lose their appeal eventually and most games age poorly too. Not many I still would want to play after years/decades. The saddest for me is Age of Wonders, I used to play that over and over for many years. It never got boring for me because I used to like the comfy repetition and I got to try new stuff sometimes. It all had a sense of wonder -.- about it which was mostly because the maps seemed huge and I was such a noob that it took me forever to go through them. So I'd play that map for days until it was done and loved it. But when I play now it all feels so small and such a waste of time. There's not that much to do and not much in the game, most of what you are doing is chores of clicking ok on 20 things each turn. If you speeded it all up and cut out all the crap it would be 2 minutes. It just totally lost all interest to me suddenly. The battles are the best bit and for that I may as well play KOTC or something which is better and more focused on it. I also feel like my love for it in the past stopped me from questioning all the stuff that sucks about it. Now I see so much wrong with I rather just play something else.

I even saw a thread somewhere I think on the official forum saying what would you want to see in AOW4, and I couldn't even be bothered to post. I'm tired of the same games over and over and things that don't progress. Any game that has 'maps' that you play in, the chances are it's stupidly small and massively limiting. Every 10 years they increase by 50% or whatever so when you look back at an old game (especially an RTS) it's like playing in a world the size of a kitchen table. But even now it's kind of already dated if it even has maps at all. A lot of games like Tropico and RTS and stuff, I loved them in the 90s but they just haven't progressed at all since. And some things spoil me, like after being bothered by the claustrophobic 'maps' I was talking about, you play something with a semi-infinite world like Minecraft or whatever and it's hard to go back to such boxed in old games.

I think getting older makes you bored of the same old crap, and if gaming was good it would still provide plenty of interesting new stuff even for us. But it's so dead, so stagnant and rewards all the wrong shit. It is in a really bad way. My advice is try modding what you like until you can't play it anymore. Then move on to some other old game. I have some on rotation, STALKERs, Arma 3, Wizardry 8, SWAT 3, JA2, System Shocks, some old racing games and MMOs and stuff. There's not much keeping me a gamer though really. It's literally just that I know how good it was in the 90s, it's not nostalgia or whatever, it's because of how the business worked. I keep my gaming PC because I think it would be so easy to get back to that point, it really surprises me things are this bad.
 

Tavernking

Don't believe his lies
Developer
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
1,216
Location
Australia
Vanilla Skyrim. To be fair it was my first RPG, the concept of having my own character in the world and interacting with said world in first person was revolutionary to my adolescent mind. Before then I had only played RTS and platformer games. Now I know too well, Skyrim isn't a great RPG at all. There are some decent mods though.
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
2,476
Most games tend to have lost their magic over the years. Nothing will really compare to opening up Neverwinter Nights for the first time, or stepping off that prison ship in Morrowind, to enter an alien world. Its hard for anything to maintain that special feeling.

A more typical case is Fallout Tactics. I played the demo of it years before I played any Fallout game and loved it, but never actually bothered playing it. Then a year or two ago I finally played the full version, and it was...okay, nothing exciting. Which is not something that's good for a hundred hour long RPG.
 

Funposter

Arcane
Joined
Oct 19, 2018
Messages
1,773
Location
Australia
Dark Souls. Played it to death and get zero enjoyment out of it, while I still find Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 3 to be quite fun. Haven't been able to finish a playthrough for about six years.

Contrast it to Morrowind, which I will still do a quick playthrough of once or twice a year and which never managed to lose its appeal, granted a lot of that is down to a super dedicated modding scene.
 

samuraigaiden

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2018
Messages
1,954
Location
Harare
RPG Wokedex
When I was 13 years old I played Diablo and was like "Yeah, edginess, demons, a Scottish blacksmith, this all so original and cool!" while nowadays I just think all Diablo style games suck because they are shit games that treat players like mice on a wheel.
 
Joined
May 25, 2021
Messages
1,346
Location
The western road to Erromon.
I find that this happens with certain parts of RPGs more than their entirety. I reckon all of us have sections of games we love, that we groan about having to replay upon arriving at them.

As for myself, it's harder to pinpoint a specific RPG. Probably Baldur's Gate if I'm being honest. A lot of that game is simply roaming around semi-empty wilderness zones or diving shitty corridor dungeons with bad loot. Mount & Blade Warband is another strong contender. Too easy to become rusty and it's hard to get back on the horse after losing everything to Sea Raiders. Beyond the first playthrough, it just wasn't worth my time.

It's much easier to name games from other genres. RTS campaigns are especially like this for me. The gameplay in general is just too simple to entertain me for long in many of the ones I loved most from childhood. I was surprised that even multiplayer didn't help much in some cases. Stronghold is the one that comes to mind first.

Sometimes imposing your own limitations to gameplay can put some spice back into things, but a lot of it comes down to somehow reinvesting yourself in a story or set of events where you already know the outcome. Try as you might, you'll never recapture the wonder of your first playthrough. You may get some of it back if you play it in tandem with a friend though. Experiencing their joys and disappointments for the first time might spice up your Role-playing life.
 
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Ghulgothas

Arcane
Joined
Feb 22, 2020
Messages
1,598
Location
So Below
Pillars of Eternity. As my first real experience with a CRPG, it was magical and awe-inspiring. It pushed me to seek out and play other games that were at all remotely like it, and to find others to discuss this mystical genre of games with.

Eventually I registered an account with a little-known site called RPG Codex, and it was all downhill from there.
 
Joined
May 25, 2021
Messages
1,346
Location
The western road to Erromon.
And some things spoil me, like after being bothered by the claustrophobic 'maps' I was talking about, you play something with a semi-infinite world like Minecraft or whatever and it's hard to go back to such boxed in old games.

Your whole post hits me where it hurts. I feel more or less the same way. I'll just add in regard to Minecraft, I can't even go back to it anymore after quitting a decade or so ago. Sometimes it just feels like a game gets away from you. There's like a tonne of new shit now and honestly, there's just something off-putting about having to re-learn everything you forgot in addition to all the new stuff. Same went for Conan Exiles after my main base decayed when I had PC trouble. Just can't bring myself to bang rocks for hundreds of hours all over again, especially when all my friends have long quit. No drive to compete, no drive to explore because you've been there and done that.

MMOs are the same way after a few years of not playing them, especially if they're still being added to. Time passes you by and the spark of curiosity that's required to get your cogs spinning to learn all the mechanics and systems doesn't return. It all feels fake and gay. Like a LARP or a photocopy of a photocopy of a past experience. Deep down, I know the good feelings I had when originally playing these games are gone and can never be conjured up again, but perhaps they would only be cheapened if they could. Those memories are snapshots of where we were in our lives and who we were then. Chasing that zeitgeist is a fool's errand I think.
 
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Suicidal

Arcane
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
2,208
Used to love the Diablo games but now I see them for what they are - glorified cookie clickers. Same goes for all their clones.
 

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