Nah. It's more like:
Why. I've played PNP RPGs and even within those you are still navigating through a scenario constructed beforehand by the GM. There is more spontaneity because as a group of people working in the moment you are able to come up with solutions on the fly, and the GM, being a human, can allow or disallow those solutions on a case by case basis. However there is still an overall story structure that is usually seen through, after all what are PNP campaign modules for? This is even more true in CRPG form. You are not constructing an adventure as you go, there is no true freedom, you are playing through a story that has already been constructed from beginning to end, you simply have some relative control over the pacing and order of things.
Except you can only use the specifically allowed skill in any given skill check situation. "Solving problems and use skills checks on your own" would only amount to going down the list of skills until you find the one that is applicable. So how does this somehow make it more of an "RPG" than AoD? The very fact that so many people complain about all the content that can be missed in AoD is a testament to the amount of exploration that is possible within the game.
That’s is just as arbitrary as if a storyfag said that AoD, as a game, stripped of all the C&C would not be an cRPG. People can make entire PnP campaigns without combat. It’s retarded, I know, but it happens. I think that we should try to resist the temptation of politicising this discussion because we want cRPGs to have more or less combat. I think that the definition of cRPG is not as important as long as the implementation of some of its features are accompanied by engrossing mechanics. If you are a storyfag, you can consider a heavy combat cRPG as a single campaign that is more focused on combat, and if you are a combatfag the opposite. I want both things, but I’m inclined to prefer the combat. What I don't want is a game that has neither engrossing mechanics, let's say, SR, nor good itemization or exploration (W2, PoE, etc). In my own ignorant opinion, the discussion about the nature of cRPGs, and their relation to their PnP past, is only useful to help us to inform our criticisms of current gameplay, their need of good character building, etc.
You don’t get to decide by vote what is the nature of the thing, man. If a combatless game is a cRPG, it will be even if grognards make a revolution and throw this games in the fire. It’s not a matter of politics, it’s a matter of definition, which requires conceptual analysis. You need to look at the most salient PnP games, abstract what they were trying to achieve, and use this to understand what cRPGs are given the limitations of the medium. It seems to me that cRPGs are attempts to surpass challenges using models that represent indepth character traits and abilities. This allows a pure combat playthrough or a talking playthrough. The combat playthrough is more rewarding because combat systems are more evolved, but I don’t want my ability to make narrative choices taken from me because you are blaming C&C as the source of all evil in the gaming industry. Do you think that most developers implement bad combat systems because they wasted their time implementing C&C? Of course not, it is because they are trying to please a wider audience with streamlined mechanics. By the direction game development is heading every single pseudo-cRPG out there will be completely linear and have barebones character building, if that.
I see, with that I can agree. But I will still insist that (1) it doesn’t matter the type of model you use to represent abilities, trais, skills and other relevant aspects of the player, character building is integral to cRPGs; (2) the quality of gameplay is in part determined by how much this model is taken seriously and well implemented, which includes a good combat system, well placed skill/stat checks, etc.
JS: My target audience has condemned me to make IE clones forever.
Alright, this has been fun but I'm probably not going respond after this post. For complicated reasons that I'm not really interested in explaining (and in the case of technological development, incapable of explaining), video game's are generally pursuing the direction of ever deeper simulation (by which I don't necessarily mean the genre of Immersive Sim, which has some overlap with CRPGs). This is true even of AAA action games. I certainly don't want CRPGs to simply become FPSs. That would be an unfortunate development, and you're right that many CRPGs thus far that have tried to eliminate stats in the pursuit of simulation more or less end up approximating FPS gameplay.
The game has combat.
It may not be the combat you want, but it has.
Reminds me... reminds me of "You fight like a dairy farmer!"
Can you blow a hole in the wall if the door is locked in this innovative Rpg?
Go to the website: http://zaumstudio.com
The very first thing listed under features is:
From the FAQ (http://zaumstudio.com/devblog/page/15/):
It's turn-based combat mediated via the dialogue UI rather than a separate combat UI. What's the problem here? You'll get a list of tactical options like in zillions of other RPGs, you'll choose, there will some RNG magic, the other guy does his thing, and so on until the fight ends. Imagine if Fallout's combat had been conducted through the little text box where it described the outcome of each hit--DE just plans to be a lot more descriptive.
Let's see, turn-based system, outcomes determined by character skill and RNG; how is this not RPG combat?
Sure, there will be no random encounters. Everything will be hand placed. Is that supposed to be a bad thing?
Is the objection to the user interface or to the fact that you have no cookie-cutter encounters and every possible move is scripted (although for all I know they'll reuse these lines, like the Fallout text box)? To me, the latter just says they've spent a lot of time writing to provide an insane level of reactivity both within combat, and everywhere else.
