Settings and their lack of differentiation

[Excidium II]

That's why I always pick headgear avatars.

 

[Neckbeard Shitlord]

Why is it 3/4 of the feedback on RPGs is about hairstyles? Complaints about lack of variety, lack of colorization options, lack of real hair movement? I mean, come on, it's hair. Hair. I'll say that again: hair.

3/4 of mentally ill people, anyway. In general people like customization, but it is not something that many people go mental over. It only gets attention from devs because it's something least common denominator and easy to address. And even so in crusader kings I can't make a normal swedish royal family or keep out dozens of muslims from filling the court.

 

[Night Goat]

I'd still like to see some kind of prehistoric setting for a RPG. Not necessarily dinosaurs but more of a late pleistocene, neanderthal, sabretooth tiger filled world with roving tribes and shit. Insert ice age whenever necessary.

Ever since I heard about the Cleve Mythos, I've thought that it would make a great setting for an RPG. Too bad most gamers are Saps.

TL;DR version of this thread - the fault for having shitty fantasy settings in RPGs doesn't fall on incapable developers but rather on autistic nerds (with crap taste) who represent the majority of their customers/audiance.

This. We'll keep getting generic medieval fantasy settings forever, because the masses don't demand anything different. They're scared and confused by anything they're not already familiar with.

 

[Night Goat]

At what point did I say anything about Injun treasure? I like fantasy, I'm just tired of the banalshitboring paint-by-numbers fantasy we get in every fucking game. Give me a cowboy game with magic and monsters, anything but more elves and dwarves.

 

[mondblut]

Why do you and other people keep bringing up books as if they were a valid example in any conversation concerning cRPGs?

The Witcher and Birthright were also games. Even that specific Perumov's novel was made into an abysmal game.

 

[Lhynn]

Even that specific Perumov's novel was made into an abysmal game.

Ah never heard of that game.

 

[mondblut]

Ah never heard of that game.

"Sword of diamond, sword of wood". was never allowed to crawl out of russistan, I think.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Speaking about avatar hair, does anyone else really hate too much visual customization? Like for example, a typical RPG will have some basic options, male, female, several faces, several hair styles, several hair colors. And that's just fine. But then you have stuff like Oblivion, remember that horror? You could drag all those cursors around and play around with a shit ton of variables, and the more time you spent on it, the more horrifying your character looked. First, I spent like 5 minutes, and the resulting avatar looked like a cat turd. I went back and spent 20 minutes, and the avatar now looked like a geriatric sunburned cat turd after a plastic surgery gone wrong. I then spent about an hour, and the result was an avatar that would look in envy at a geriatric sunburned cat turd after a plastic surgery gone wrong. That's when I gave up, and made an absolutely bland as possible bald guy that went back to simply being butt ugly, but nothing beyond that.

Now some of you may say, that's just Oblivion, but I've had similar experiences with other games, like Pro Evolution Soccer ones. I am not a graphic artist, don't give me all those options, just a few will suffice.

 

[Excidium II]

Speaking about avatar hair, does anyone else really hate too much visual customization? Like for example, a typical RPG will have some basic options, male, female, several faces, several hair styles, several hair colors. And that's just fine. But then you have stuff like Oblivion, remember that horror? You could drag all those cursors around and play around with a shit ton of variables, and the more time you spent on it, the more horrifying your character looked. First, I spent like 5 minutes, and the resulting avatar looked like a cat turd. I went back and spent 20 minutes, and the avatar now looked like a geriatric sunburned cat turd after a plastic surgery gone wrong. I then spent about an hour, and the result was an avatar that would look in envy at a geriatric sunburned cat turd after a plastic surgery gone wrong. That's when I gave up, and made an absolutely bland as possible bald guy that went back to simply being butt ugly, but nothing beyond that.

Now some of you may say, that's just Oblivion, but I've had similar experiences with other games, like Pro Evolution Soccer ones. I am not a graphic artist, don't give me all those options, just a few will suffice.

Those are just bad ones

 

[Telengard]

Speaking about avatar hair, does anyone else really hate too much visual customization? Like for example, a typical RPG will have some basic options, male, female, several faces, several hair styles, several hair colors. And that's just fine. But then you have stuff like Oblivion, remember that horror? You could drag all those cursors around and play around with a shit ton of variables, and the more time you spent on it, the more horrifying your character looked. First, I spent like 5 minutes, and the resulting avatar looked like a cat turd. I went back and spent 20 minutes, and the avatar now looked like a geriatric sunburned cat turd after a plastic surgery gone wrong. I then spent about an hour, and the result was an avatar that would look in envy at a geriatric sunburned cat turd after a plastic surgery gone wrong. That's when I gave up, and made an absolutely bland as possible bald guy that went back to simply being butt ugly, but nothing beyond that.

Now some of you may say, that's just Oblivion, but I've had similar experiences with other games, like Pro Evolution Soccer ones. I am not a graphic artist, don't give me all those options, just a few will suffice.

What Excidium said, but it is also more than that. Designing a beautiful or handsome face in 3d isn't as simple a task as it may seem on the surface. Face structure is a complex entity, and what people find beautiful is a small subset of certain combinations of facial features. Couple that with most game designers just lazily giving you access to data dials, and it can be really difficult for someone going in cold to pull out anything halfway decent, save by chance. (If you've at least had a life drawing class, you'll probably do okay.) Games with more design work put into the character designer usually make it easier on the player by heavily restricting what you can do with facial alterations, often down to a few preset options (unless you click Advanced or something).

Howsoever, the really funny bit here, at least to me, is people put all that work into faces and hair choices, and then the game is top down distant camera, 3rd person, or first person, and then on top of that, you put on a skullcap or helmet or some such. So no matter what, all that time you spent in the character designer is for naught. You never see the face and hair at all, just an ass or a distant blob. Unless there's Biowarian cutscenes or something, I suppose. Oh wait, and there is that little toggle now, so you can wear helmets without actually "wearing" them.

Nevermind.

 

[TigerKnee]

Half of the people are taking the word Fantasy to mean "Tolkien but minus the parts where he actually placed his differentiation on the genre a.k.a your average CRPG" and the other half think that the opposite is apparently complete full-blown realism

 

[laclongquan]

Harry Potter. Has it been done?

EDIT: And backgrounds could include "Scholarship Boy", "Foreign Prince", "Poor Nobility" and the like.

You are talking about Academagia.

Pupils in a magic schools who have adventures, or god forbid, have fun in studying. No Quitditch, but some other sport mini games. With stats. My god they have stats. And stories. And background. And quests~

 

[Daedalos]

Hope you like your Mass Effect. Seriously though, there have been quite a few amazing SF rpg's in the past. The Buck Roger's games with their proud 50's pulp roots, B.A.T.'s wierd space opera vibe, Hard Nova's massive gameworld, Megatraveller with its wide variety of planets, cities, colonies and lifeless moons in a massive feudal empire and Spacewrecked with its early stranded on a dying spaceship theme. Just a few that spring to mind. The draught of the rpg genre unfortunately also meant an end to this and the change of gaming from a fringe hobby to a genuine industry also meant that devs and publishers stopped experimenting and doing quircky stuff. Unfortunately. I genuinly expected more to come after the phenomenal success of the Mass Effect trilogy. Alas.

And how many of those have been isometric, Turn-based, multiple C&C driven, fully realized cRPgs? With engaging encounters, rich original Sci-Fi story, complex and difficult but rewarding combat.. Topped off with beautiful graphics that is tasteful and highly stilized and unique?

 

[Beastro]

Speaking about avatar hair, does anyone else really hate too much visual customization? Like for example, a typical RPG will have some basic options, male, female, several faces, several hair styles, several hair colors. And that's just fine. But then you have stuff like Oblivion, remember that horror? You could drag all those cursors around and play around with a shit ton of variables, and the more time you spent on it, the more horrifying your character looked. First, I spent like 5 minutes, and the resulting avatar looked like a cat turd. I went back and spent 20 minutes, and the avatar now looked like a geriatric sunburned cat turd after a plastic surgery gone wrong. I then spent about an hour, and the result was an avatar that would look in envy at a geriatric sunburned cat turd after a plastic surgery gone wrong. That's when I gave up, and made an absolutely bland as possible bald guy that went back to simply being butt ugly, but nothing beyond that.

Now some of you may say, that's just Oblivion, but I've had similar experiences with other games, like Pro Evolution Soccer ones. I am not a graphic artist, don't give me all those options, just a few will suffice.

Only fun is making freaky people that stand out like a sore thumb and not don't have people weirding out.

In the latter two Fallouts I'd just turn the sliders to their extremes and work out a chick that looks like a super pale redneck with a massive overbite, beady narrow eyes and massive witch nose so I"d have a good chuckle the rare time I used VATS.

 

[Beastro]

Half of the people are taking the word Fantasy to mean "Tolkien but minus the parts where he actually placed his differentiation on the genre a.k.a your average CRPG" and the other half think that the opposite is apparently complete full-blown realism

Ironic since so much of his work was down to earth, the pains of travelling on food and magic revolving around subtle enchantments.

 

[Xzylvador]

Ironic since so much of his work was down to earth, the pains of travelling on food and magic revolving around subtle enchantments.

Psh.
Clearly you should watch the LOTR and the Hobbit trilogies again.
Tolkien was all about interracial romance, massive warfare and flashy lightning, fire and shockwave magic.
You obviously misread the screenplays he wrote and lack the imagination required to fully grasp them.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Psh.
Clearly you should watch read the LOTR trilogy and the Hobbit trilogies again.

Fixed.

 

[Xzylvador]

You know, I almost made that same mistake when I went to the bookstore.
Imagine my disappointment and surprise when I could only find a shortened, simplified version of the hobbit trilogy that almost seemed like a child's book when I leafed through it. They'd not only cut out all the cool battles and stunts, but they'd even cut out my favorite character, Orlando Bloom Legolas! Surely leaving such a great figure out of the children's version is like... child abuse or something!
But then I was smart and figured out that the movies must be so popular that the real books must've all been sold out.

So I bought the Insurgent book instead. Will try again next year, when I'm finished with this masterpiece.

Back on topic, they should make a cRPG of the Divergent series! It'd not just have class-based charbuilding, but a whole class-based society! I'd so play the crap out of my Dauntless and kill the crap out of any multiclass freaks!

 

[WhiteGuts]

Death to generic fantasy. But also death to the Chosen One protag.

 

[Telengard]

And people wonder why RPGs are the way they are - concentrating on hair over gameplay features, high fantasy and space opera over anything else.

I mean, here we are in fair Codexia, amongst the RPG elite. And:

• Nobody wants to play a character with stupid hair or hair that doesn't match the 2d portrait.
• You know how you could make Wild West combat interesting? Add magic to it. Or steampunk gear that fulfills the same purpose.
• Retards who want a wild west rpg are the type of disgusting storyfags who should stick to reading books and never be allowed touch another computer again.

When one wants to understand the audience of RPGs, one simply must understand that these kinds of comments are the norm. Read one hundred feedback notes, and only one will be about gameplay. Only one will be about what actually makes the game tick. All the others will be surface stuff. Perhaps worse, they will be heavily obsessive. Visual feedback, doll visual accuracy (what I wouldn't give to have the mannequins still be called dolls), demandings of additional high fantasy elements, and all of it mixed with a teeny-style my-way-or-the-highway attitude.

And the thing of it is, the horror that you eventually come to realize is, this is the core RPG audience's opinion. Not the masses'. The core. And with a core like that, of course we can't have nice, interesting things. We can only have the same old thing in a nice dress and stylish hair.

 

[naossano]

With the wide success of the Game Of Thrones series, one would assume that show/movies/games/etc about court intrigues are getting more popular these days. And our world has a long ongoing history of court intrigue...

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

• You know how you could make Wild West combat interesting? Add magic to it. Or steampunk gear that fulfills the same purpose.

It's hardly my fault the most popular Wild West RPG on the market does it and is also pretty good. Magic does make combat more interesting because it adds more options for both character and villains. The game is of course still pretty playable even if you play without casting PCs. So I'm just saying that while you don't need magic to make western interesting you can have magiclike effects while still keeping the Wild Wests atmosphere.

 

[prodigydancer]

Conclusion: this thread has been ruined by combatfags.

 

[naossano]

What can a combatfag possibly say in a discussion about setting ?

 

[CyberWhale]

. Magic does make combat more interesting because it adds more options for both character and villains.

This is completely true, having fantastical elements does provide you with more options than when you're being forced to work only with things that are more or less grounded in reality. However, ubernerds who suffer from an inexplainable desire to throw their feccies at any mention of a more plausible setting completely overlook the fact that those limitations only apply if we are talking about some idealistic potential, but utterly fail when we objectively look not only at most entries in the RPG genre but at its best and brightest gems as well.

Just a few examples:

1. Except for a few notable titles (Planescape Torment and Pillars of Eternity come to mind) most games completely lack a huge number of different weapons that were present in medieval ages they are based upon
2. Even when those non-sword melee weapons are included, the huge number of varying uses/moves and accompanying status effects is either not present or faultily implemented
3. In the worst (and unfortunately most often one) case we aren't only stuck with options 1. and 2. but developers who are like minded with high fantasy retards fail at adding anything substantial with their additional magic layer and simply use those abilities as a more powerful high-end weapons with an increased but nonetheless same kind of damage output

So yes, unlimited imagination of fantasy isn't only "less boring" then severally limiting inventions of reality but is also provides a logical next step when you want to achieve something more complex. Still, in a situation where we haven't even came close to reaching the possibilities that the latter option provides even during the golden age of the genre and have from then on mostly witnessed an unrelenting degradation, going on a dumbfuck crusade against "boring realism" can only be explained if you are some kind of omega manchild who thinks that wielding an Enchanted Vampirelord Dagger with -5 LIFEFORCE PER TURN BECAUSE OF MAGICK is somehow more AWSUM than equipping a Poisoned Janbiya with -5 HP PER TURN BECAUSE, WELL, POISON.

MUH FANTAZI POWATRIP!
YOUR DA CHOSEN ONE!
KILL ANCIUNT EVUL!
SAVE DA WURLD!
UR AWSUM!
:kwanzania: