sawyer wants rpg to evolve

[Zer0wing]

The answer is dungeon crawlers are still RPGs.

 

[Roguey]

I like taking everything down to extreme reductions to see if it still rings true:

- can a game without any dialog whatsoever still be an RPG?

So on and so forth! Seems to me the simplest way to break down the truly core elements of something.

Spoiler

Answer is yes! This means NPC dialog is not an elemental part of the RPG.

Same thing is true of combat (though of course there must be some system of conflict resolution) and exploration.

I guess the one thing all RPGs have in common is some sort of character progression (but not necessarily one that gives you any choices), even if it's just a treadmill.

 

[aweigh]

Didn't Sawyer himself say that combat is a core element of all RPGs? It's probably the one big thing most any RPGaymer would agree with him about.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

RPGs without combat are called visual novels.

 

[Sigourn]

The core element of RPGs is a system that determines what your character can and cannot do, and how well does it do it.

If you have no limits as to what you can potentially do, you don't have an RPG.

 

[Roguey]

Didn't Sawyer himself say that combat is a core element of all RPGs? It's probably the one big thing most any RPGaymer would agree with him about.

"Most RPGs."

 

[Chippy]

I remember Sawyer writing a blog entry whenever the ME3 ending controversy was about. He said something about his family being artists, and that (vague memory) one of the points he made was that an artist needs to just follow their vision and f'u if you don't like it. Which is something to respect. But untimately companies are still restricted in what they can and can't do - I remember MCA talking about how he had a box filled with scrap bits of paper with all the ideas he couldn't put into PST.

So I think that one way for an RPG to evolve is for them to be as unrestrictive a form of art as any other form of art. It would help if they were completely free in terms of freedom of thought, speech, and expression. And thats like entering a 3 legged horse in a race because we don't live in those times anymore, and no company has got the balls - imagine trying to visually implement some perverse fleshcrafting to illustrate what Anezka went through with the Tzimisce if a VTM:Redemption remake was made, or show the Dark Elves in all their perversity to Slaanesh if another decent Warhammer game is ever done. With the political climte today it'd be worse than the DnD demons 'n devils shit from back in the day.

The point being: Sawyer can't blame the grognards(tm) for being stuck in the past/on railroad thinking - if the developers themselves, and the companies they work for arn't prepared to take some risks for their art form.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I remember Sawyer writing a blog entry whenever the ME3 ending controversy was about. He said something about his family being artists, and that (vague memory) one of the points he made was that an artist needs to just follow their vision and f'u if you don't like it. Which is something to respect. But untimately companies are still restricted in what they can and can't do - I remember MCA talking about how he had a box filled with scrap bits of paper with all the ideas he couldn't put into PST.

So I think that one way for an RPG to evolve is for them to be as unrestrictive a form of art as any other form of art. It would help if they were completely free in terms of freedom of thought, speech, and expression. And thats like entering a 3 legged horse in a race because we don't live in those times anymore, and no company has got the balls - imagine trying to visually implement some perverse fleshcrafting to illustrate what Anezka went through with the Tzimisce if a VTM:Redemption remake was made, or show the Dark Elves in all their perversity to Slaanesh if another decent Warhammer game is ever done. With the political climte today it'd be worse than the DnD demons 'n devils shit from back in the day.

The point being: Sawyer can't blame the grognards(tm) for being stuck in the past/on railroad thinking - if the developers themselves, and the companies they work for arn't prepared to take some risks for their art form.

if he wants to put his dumbass ideas in games then he should fund his own game development studio

 

[Roguey]

He said something about his family being artists, and that (vague memory) one of the points he made was that an artist needs to just follow their vision and f'u if you don't like it.

That's not what he said. He said an artist can do whatever they want, but they can't expect anyone to pay or respect them for it.

 

[Chippy]

Yeah I might have worded it badly, but am pretty sure he followed it up with "Some part of the artist just wants to follow their vision and screw the critics", or something to that effect. As a follow up to the initial point anyway. I thought it was a pretty reasonable POV.

 

[unfairlight]

RPGs without combat are called visual novels.

More like adventure games, since interactivity in visual novels is limited only to selecting dialogue options while CRPGs require the ability to move a character or party in a world.

 

[Roqua]

Rpgs are simulations with rules - per the creator of rpgs the goal was creating stories within a simulated, structured context. The heart of any story is conflict. Conflict can be verbal or physical.

I don't think an rpg without combat is something I would be interested in - but it is 100% possible. That is not speculation or assumption. It is an objective fact.

Rpgs with only combat is something I am also not interested in - but is, of course, 100% possible.

I am more interested in an video game rpg that gives me a stage to create my own stories with a healthy mix of both, like FO 1 and 2 did. I am not interested in games that dictate a story to me passively, regardless of rpg elements. I prefer extremely heavy and complex rpg systems with tons of choices, requiring a lot of thought for chargen and chardev, with hand made encounters that are extremely challenging. But that doesn't mean rpg-lite games with shitty, easy, overabundant filler combat aren't rpgs.

I think people who try to shoehorn what the like or dislike into what makes an rpg is or what an rpg should be, instead of dispassionately looking at the start of them, the why of them, the reason for them, and realizing what separates an rpg from a game with just rpg elements (regardless of heaviness of the elements) are doing an extreme disservice to themselves, the genre, logic, and science.

 

[Ulfhednar]

If you try to write a sonnet without iambic pentameter, it’s just gonna be shit. Some art has constraints that are necessary to the form.

“Follow your vision” sounds nice, but boundaries are important, too.

 

[Roqua]

If you try to write a sonnet without iambic pentameter, it’s just gonna be shit. Some art has constraints that are necessary to the form.

“Follow your vision” sounds nice, but boundaries are important, too.

I understand your point but it isn't correct. Its like saying a drawing/painting without correct perspective will be shit. Or a poet that doesn't use correct capitalization will be shit, or correct grammar will be shit. Or a sculpture without correct proportions would be shit, etc. Or a song with not actual rhyming words being shit.

Certainly, anyone who tries to do a piece of art in a well defined field may have a shitty piece of art within the constraints of those restrictions, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good piece of art outside of those specific well defined restrictions.


And I think anyone who wants games to be art, which is a passive medium, should stop calling what they want games. Games should strive to be great games first and foremost. Games striving to be better art have lost site of what the whole point of a game is.

 

[Ulfhednar]

I understand your point but it isn't correct. Its like saying a drawing/painting without correct perspective will be shit. Or a poet that doesn't use correct capitalization will be shit, or correct grammar will be shit. Or a sculpture without correct proportions would be shit, etc. Or a song with not actual rhyming words being shit.

I'm not sure you did understand my point. I'm not saying ee cummings is a bad poet because he doesn't capitalize things and uses strange punctuation.

I'm saying ee cummings would be wrong to complain that his artistic vision was being infringed upon if he raised $4M dollars from sonnet fans telling them that he was going to write the best sonnet ever and then they were all up in arms when he came back with [in Just-].

If they wanted sonnets, then the result vs their expectations would be shit.

 

[Roqua]

I understand your point but it isn't correct. Its like saying a drawing/painting without correct perspective will be shit. Or a poet that doesn't use correct capitalization will be shit, or correct grammar will be shit. Or a sculpture without correct proportions would be shit, etc. Or a song with not actual rhyming words being shit.

I'm not sure you did understand my point. I'm not saying ee cummings is a bad poet because he doesn't capitalize things and uses strange punctuation.

I'm saying ee cummings would be wrong to complain that his artistic vision was being infringed upon if he raised $4M dollars from sonnet fans telling them that he was going to write the best sonnet ever and then they were all up in arms when he came back with [in Just-].

If they wanted sonnets, then the result vs their expectations would be shit.

I agree with your example and like it - but is it equivalent? It is pretty agreed upon on what a sonnet is.

As another example - I supported BT4 because I assumed it would be a modern update to blobbers. I never expected it to have recruitable party members. I assumed it would, like every blobber I hold in high regard, have full party generation right at the start - like there is no doubt in my mind is the correct way and the way they always should be without exception. Of course, I can make a full party after a while, but it isn't the same and dirties the whole thing with filth I want removed. Other people have other complaints. Valid complaints. Some more so than others, but all valid because all are subjective.

How much subjective opinion is there in what a sonnet is or isn't? Are there large crowds of people who think they love sonnets saying Frost or Cummings are the greatest sonnet composers ever?

And just as a side note in case it seems like I am trying to come off as some sort of poetry expert - I am the exact opposite I'm not a huge fan and like popular pro-warrior stuff like Tennyson and Kipling and some random popular poems like Henley's Invictus. I don't know shit about poems, sonnets, or what makes a good poem. I like certain poems despite my complete lack of knowledge regarding poetry.

 

[Beastro]

If you try to write a sonnet without iambic pentameter, it’s just gonna be shit. Some art has constraints that are necessary to the form.

“Follow your vision” sounds nice, but boundaries are important, too.

When it comes to things like world building or creating a story no boundries make things shit.

 

[Ulfhednar]

I agree with your example and like it - but is it equivalent? It is pretty agreed upon on what a sonnet is.

As another example - I supported BT4 because I assumed it would be a modern update to blobbers. I never expected it to have recruitable party members. I assumed it would, like every blobber I hold in high regard, have full party generation right at the start - like there is no doubt in my mind is the correct way and the way they always should be without exception. Of course, I can make a full party after a while, but it isn't the same and dirties the whole thing with filth I want removed. Other people have other complaints. Valid complaints. Some more so than others, but all valid because all are subjective.

How much subjective opinion is there in what a sonnet is or isn't? Are there large crowds of people who think they love sonnets saying Frost or Cummings are the greatest sonnet composers ever?

And just as a side note in case it seems like I am trying to come off as some sort of poetry expert - I am the exact opposite I'm not a huge fan and like popular pro-warrior stuff like Tennyson and Kipling and some random popular poems like Henley's Invictus. I don't know shit about poems, sonnets, or what makes a good poem. I like certain poems despite my complete lack of knowledge regarding poetry.

Whether or not "Infinity Engine RPG" is a totally definable quantity is irrelevant to a lack of artistic license in the Pillars of Eternity series because of how the game was marketed to fans of IE RPGs. In this case, complaining that you can't push the genre forward is absurd because the game was marketed as nostalgia-bait on the legacy of a 20-year old retro game.

Pointing fingers at your fans for not being progressive enough is a betrayal because they funded a retro-nostalgia game and "saved the company." Obsidian/Sawyer might think that they have more license with the sequel, but that is a bad bet working from a shaky foundation if the original people who helped to create it were disappointed by the final product.

In general, I enjoyed PoE I, but Sawyer's insistence on including or removing certain features that I consider "the correct way and the way they always should be without exception" for Infinity Engine RPGs during the crowd-funding of the second game really helped me understand why he gets so much heat from people on this forum.

 

[Roqua]

I agree with your example and like it - but is it equivalent? It is pretty agreed upon on what a sonnet is.

As another example - I supported BT4 because I assumed it would be a modern update to blobbers. I never expected it to have recruitable party members. I assumed it would, like every blobber I hold in high regard, have full party generation right at the start - like there is no doubt in my mind is the correct way and the way they always should be without exception. Of course, I can make a full party after a while, but it isn't the same and dirties the whole thing with filth I want removed. Other people have other complaints. Valid complaints. Some more so than others, but all valid because all are subjective.

How much subjective opinion is there in what a sonnet is or isn't? Are there large crowds of people who think they love sonnets saying Frost or Cummings are the greatest sonnet composers ever?

And just as a side note in case it seems like I am trying to come off as some sort of poetry expert - I am the exact opposite I'm not a huge fan and like popular pro-warrior stuff like Tennyson and Kipling and some random popular poems like Henley's Invictus. I don't know shit about poems, sonnets, or what makes a good poem. I like certain poems despite my complete lack of knowledge regarding poetry.

Whether or not "Infinity Engine RPG" is a totally definable quantity is irrelevant to a lack of artistic license in the Pillars of Eternity series because of how the game was marketed to fans of IE RPGs. In this case, complaining that you can't push the genre forward is absurd because the game was marketed as nostalgia-bait on the legacy of a 20-year old retro game.

Pointing fingers at your fans for not being progressive enough is a betrayal because they funded a retro-nostalgia game and "saved the company." Obsidian/Sawyer might think that they have more license with the sequel, but that is a bad bet working from a shaky foundation if the original people who helped to create it were disappointed by the final product.

In general, I enjoyed PoE I, but Sawyer's insistence on including or removing certain features that I consider "the correct way and the way they always should be without exception" for Infinity Engine RPGs during the crowd-funding of the second game really helped me understand why he gets so much heat from people on this forum.

I can't disagree. I don't know how a reasonable, sensible person can play FO 1/2 and think the shitty console FOs were better in any way at all. But, there is no doubt that the pretend FOs are far more popular and profitable than the real Fallouts. If I was in charge of a game company I would much rather have that fake Fallout money than the real Fallout money.

When I read what he wrote how I interpreted was - "We want to make console games that appeal to children and retards rather than people who actually like good rpgs since, clearly, there is way more money and fame in doing so. Gimme that Bethesda money and fuck cprgs!"

 

[Ulfhednar]

When I read what he wrote how I interpreted was - "We want to make console games that appeal to children and retards rather than people who actually like good rpgs since, clearly, there is way more money and fame in doing so. Gimme that Bethesda money and fuck cprgs!"

That would be far more honest than saying the grognards that allowed your game to exist are twats for having VERY SPECIFIC tastes and expectations regarding "Infinity Engine RPGs" and are therefore holding back the genre.