Spurned RPGs That are Masterpieces Today

[Harthwain]

[...] how the Bretons got French names [...]

That... makes a lot of sense.

Honestly, I don't mind Cyrodiil taking a Roman Empire angle. It may have been a bit too Roman in terms of armour design (and I would kept their societal structure), but it contrasted really well with Dunmer armour sets, which are - in my opinion - the best in the game.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

[...] how the Bretons got French names [...]

That... makes a lot of sense.

Well, it still fit with prior lore names which tended to be English (/Arthurian, with some Celtic sounding elements). So afterwards I guess it kinda stabilized to Anglo-Norman onomastics that fit them just fine while the Reachmen maintained a Celtic one which represents a nice duality when paired with the Bretons. On the other hand, what ruined Breton lore is that Bethesda kept removing the elvish influences from them which - in lack of other interesting lore - turned them into very generic medieval fantasy humans. And unlike, say, the Bretonnians of Warhammer Fantasy, there's no strong Arthurian element to compensate for the loss of the 'manmeri' angle.

 

[Shin]

Sword Coast Legends was considered fairly average at the time of release, I believe some rpg codexers did not enjoy it. After the release of the 'Rage of Demons' DLC and after the publisher had to prohibit sales in december 2017 due to contract issues, the game has become a cult classic. With its distinct art style, ground-breaking UI, immersive ("visceral") RtwP combat and a soundtrack by Inon Zur, it is now considered to be one of the best western RPG's to come out last decade.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Shin This is my first encounter with anything other than damning criticism of Sword Coast Legends. I tried it when it came out, and it was truly shit. Had no reason to be a D&D title. Citation needed for positivity regarding this one.

 

[Dark Souls II]

Dark Souls II.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Sword Coast Legends was considered fairly average at the time of release, I believe some rpg codexers did not enjoy it. After the release of the 'Rage of Demons' DLC and after the publisher had to prohibit sales in december 2017 due to contract issues, the game has become a cult classic. With its distinct art style, ground-breaking UI, immersive ("visceral") RtwP combat and a soundtrack by Inon Zur, it is now considered to be one of the best western RPG's to come out last decade.

I don't know if this game can be considered a cult classic. I played a bit recently without knowing anything about it, and I considered it to be mediocre, but still fun to play. Then I researched on internet and I was surprised to find that there was lot of drama around it at the time. Also a time (2015) when there weren't many other crpgs around yet.

 

[MjKorz]

Sword Coast Legends was considered fairly average at the time of release, I believe some rpg codexers did not enjoy it. After the release of the 'Rage of Demons' DLC and after the publisher had to prohibit sales in december 2017 due to contract issues, the game has become a cult classic. With its distinct art style, ground-breaking UI, immersive ("visceral") RtwP combat and a soundtrack by Inon Zur, it is now considered to be one of the best western RPG's to come out last decade.

Beat this pile of mediocrity a while ago in multiplayer. It's mostly hack&slash with generic DnD character archetypes. Absolutely nothing memorable or outstanding about it. The kind of game you beat once and forget about its existence an hour later.

 

[I eat frozen vegetables]

Sword Coast Legends was considered fairly average at the time of release, I believe some rpg codexers did not enjoy it. After the release of the 'Rage of Demons' DLC and after the publisher had to prohibit sales in december 2017 due to contract issues, the game has become a cult classic. With its distinct art style, ground-breaking UI, immersive ("visceral") RtwP combat and a soundtrack by Inon Zur, it is now considered to be one of the best western RPG's to come out last decade.

Why are you trying to pull a fast one on us?

 

[Chippy]

Pillar of Eternity, Tyranny, Wasteland 2, the Pathfinder duology, etc.

Uhh...W2 wasn't too bad - but these are the modern RPGs that have made games like Lionheart classics.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Funnily enough, Douglas Goodall felt that Morrowind was too typical of high fantasy! He mostly felt that way because Ken Rolston apparently insisted that the aesthetics and attitudes of each group mirror real-world groups, hence the Empire suddenly taking on the aesthetics of Ancient Rome and the Ashlanders having a vague Native American vibe in both appearance and culture, and how the Bretons became French:

There were quite a few of [Ken Rolston's rules], but since I didn't understand most of them, this is something you ought to ask Ken if you get the chance. The only ones I'm sure I understood were "no betrayal" and "everything must be a metaphor/everything must be based on something."

"No betrayal" meant that key NPCs couldn't turn on the player, lie to the player if they were honest in the past, nor could an NPC steal an item from the player, etc. This is good as a general rule, but it's the kind of rule that begs for exceptions.

"Everything must be a metaphor" is how the quirky Cyrodiil of Daggerfall and the alien Cyrodiil of the Pocket Guide became the Roman Empire, how the Bretons got French names, etc. I felt Tamriel had been moving away from generic fantasy and medieval history with every game until Morrowind. I wanted this trend to continue and resented having to squeeze a Hermaeus Mora-shaped Vvardenfell into a Roman Province-shaped space. I think Ken uses historical examples to make the world more believable. If you just make stuff up, there's a good chance you'll make something wrong and break suspension of disbelief. That's true, but I'd argue that if you use an inappropriate or easily recognized metaphor, you have the same risk. Besides, making stuff up is more fun for both the creators and consumers.

The "every game until Morrowind" comment is really interesting because he can only be talking about Daggerfall, Battlespire, and Redguard. I love Redguard and Battlespire (especially Redguard) and I think he has a point in that sense; they both really do feel unique and like a happy blend between DF's pulp sword and sorcery stuff and Kirkbride's metaphysical stuff, with both aspects kept in balance. If I was inexplicably put in charge of the development of TES VI, I'd have the whole dev team play Redguard and tell them that's the tone and mood I want to recreate.

The pulp fantasy setting is one following the model of Robert E. Howard's Hyboria, where each country is based on an existing real-world culture, though with some flexibility as to geography and allowing substantial inconsistency in the chronology of the inspirations. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall embraced this concept by having the province of High Rock inhabited by Bretons whose names, architecture, and clothing were a mixture of medieval Britain and France, while the province of Hammerfall, on the other side of a large body of water, is based on medieval north Africa.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind broke from the pulp fantasy setting of Daggerfall in that the Dunmer of Morrowind, and the environment of Morrowind itself, were presented as fundamentally alien and sui generis, rather than derived from historical cultures (notwithstanding a few influences from Mongolian or other nomadic cultures among the Ashlanders, or the use of Assyrian names for Daedric ruins). No-one playing Morrowind in 2002 while paying any attention to the fauna, flora, (local) architecture, Dunmer customs, or provincial history would have confused the setting with "generic fantasy and medieval history".

 

[Lemming42]

I guess Goodall's view is coloured by his experience of actually making the game, which he clearly found frustrating. His comments do seem confusing at first but, factoring in Redguard and Battlespire - which are what he's talking about, given that he mentions "every game" before Morrowind - I can sort of halfway see what he's saying, and he obviously had hands-on experience with both Rolston and Howard who both seem to have pushed for the game to have less surreal and psychedelic elements and more standard recognisable fantasy ones. Remember Kirkbride's oft-quoted story about how he'd come up with two versions of things, the one he wanted and a really batshit one. The latter would be sent to Todd who'd reject it, then Kirkbride would send his real work in the guise of a toned-down version, which Todd would approve.

I'm guessing most of what Goodall's talking about is Redguard, which is very surreal and a lot of the stuff that happens is beyond the realms of physical reality, like the part where you have to fly up the Sload Necromancer's hut by throwing yourself into his weird brew or the bit where you use the giant bird feather to travel, or the brief trip to Clavicus Vile's realm. In comparison, much of MW feels a little more mundane and less fantastical in terms of what you actually spend the game doing; there's stuff like levitating up the Telvanni towers but a good chunk of the game is spent wandering around in armour fighting monsters and assorted bandits, which presumably is what annoyed Goodall, given that he says he wants to "coax secrets from obfuscated texts" rather than "smash things with a huge axe". If he means "generic fantasy" in terms of what actually happens in the game then he's got a point.

I think he was hugely displeased with the way the Empire were portrayed as well (which is, aesthetically and to a much lesser extent culturally, clearly directly derived from the Roman Empire), which I guess is why he "resented having to squeeze a Hermaeus Mora-shaped Vvardenfell into a Roman Province-shaped space". The Ashlanders are also clearly based on Native Americans - "wise women" with feathers in their hair who sit around talking about prophecies and visions and shit, and are big into ancestor worship. Their yurts are based on real-life nomadic groups too. I'm not sure what Goodall had planned that was completely free of any real-world cultural influence, but I'm guessing what he says about Roslton is true, and you can definitely see parts where the designers have just lifted things directly from real life and shoved them into Tamriel, both in the native Dunmer cultures and even more obviously in the Imperial/Breton/Nord cultures. Goodall's definitely overstating the case but if you contrast Morrowind with Redguard you can kind of see why he might be disappointed in the trajectory; I guess we'd have to see the kind of shit he was proposing which Rolston was shooting down.

 

[Lemming42]

Went and looked him up and it turns out that over the past year Goodall has started writing TES stuff and making Morrowind mods, so you can probably find out his vision for the series from there. Apparently he used to post in-character as Jobasha back in the day and spoke in Khajiit language, so safe to say, he's a fucking weirdo and therefore exactly the kind of person who absolutely should be writing exotic fantasy stuff.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Douglas_Goodall#Texts_authored

Certainly likes his surreal shit. Reading of his vision for Skyrim and one of his ideas is that the Western part of the province and everything in it is literally shrinking, so maps have to constantly be changed and people's houses progressively get too small to live in.

 

[Harthwain]

The Ashlanders are also clearly based on Native Americans - "wise women" with feathers in their hair who sit around talking about prophecies and visions and shit, and are big into ancestor worship. Their yurts are based on real-life nomadic groups too.

I always thought the Ashlanders were inspired by nomads of Central Asia (the Mongols in particular). The ranks of the Ashlanders list "Gulakhan" and "Ashkhan". The quest for Zainab tribe has you to find a bride for "Ashkhan Kaushad" in particular.

 

[Lemming42]

True; I guess Rolston's "rule" was that everything should have real-world parallels, but cultures as a whole could be formed of lots of different individual things shoved a blender. Non-Ashlander Dunmer culture in general seems to be a weird mishmash of recognisable "oriental" stuff, from the Middle East through Turkey through India through Mongolia through China, down to the aesthetics including stuff like paper lanterns. The religion seems to have a lot of Hindu/Buddhist stuff going on too. I guess it's the same for the Empire; everyone suddenly has Latin names and wears Ancient Roman looking armour and shields, but culturally they act a little more like post-1807 British Empire (down to having their own near-identically-named version of the East India Company, lol).

I'd love to know the exact stuff Goodall was proposing when he came into conflict with Rolston and learn more about what Rolston's directives actually were; though the way the game is I suppose you can kind of see that Rolston and Howard mostly approved stuff with either real-world points of comparison or basis in existing fantasy stuff (the Telvanni presumably getting through because Howard was able to grasp the concept of "snooty mages in towers" or something).

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Sword Coast Legends was considered fairly average at the time of release, I believe some rpg codexers did not enjoy it. After the release of the 'Rage of Demons' DLC and after the publisher had to prohibit sales in december 2017 due to contract issues, the game has become a cult classic. With its distinct art style, ground-breaking UI, immersive ("visceral") RtwP combat and a soundtrack by Inon Zur, it is now considered to be one of the best western RPG's to come out last decade.

It didn't even have barbarians so you know the game was shit through and through.

 

[NecroLord]

Shin This is my first encounter with anything other than damning criticism of Sword Coast Legends. I tried it when it came out, and it was truly shit. Had no reason to be a D&D title. Citation needed for positivity regarding this one.

That's a whole lotta fanboyism, honestly.

 

[almondblight]

I love all this kind of stuff where people are living in what you and me believe is a golden age and they're complaining about how shit it is, I've got loads. Gives a feeling of how we're gonna look to kids today who think the 2020s are the peak of gaming. Here's Gabe Newell describing his belief that "the first-person genre" had devolved to lowest common denominator shooting galleries by the time he started developing Half-Life (so 1996 - 1998):

Yeah, "doom clone" was used as a pejorative in the 90's. And with good reason, FPS was the hot genre, let's of clones were being shoveled in, and it was a genre people with no intention spans that just wanted to blow stuff up could easily get into.

A lot of modern garbage will be considered "classics" in a few years. Not even classics, but hardcore. But the fact that everyone excuses the garbage they grew up with isn't just an indictment of recent "classics", but older "classics" as well. Pretty much any area you look at (80's, 90's, 00's, etc.), there are tons of fanboys who ignore the poor design of the games they like.

 

[NecroLord]

Remember when fools referred to Heretic and Hexen as "Doom clones"?
Complete idiocy.
I will not have such disrespect aimed at those two classic dark fantasy shooters...

 

[JarlFrank]

Most "Doom clones" weren't even Doom clones, but Wolfenstein 3D clones. No verticality whatsoever, walls have only 90 degree angles, etc. They were obsolete the moment they came out because that's just so utterly limiting compared to what Doom added to the genre just with its different height levels and slanted walls. There are only so many ways you can re-arrange flat rectangles until you run out of level design ideas.

 

[NecroLord]

And even so Wolf 3D still manages to be a better shooter than most modern day ones.

 

[SmoothPimp]

All RPGs after Akalabeth are soy libtard shit.

 

[Vormulak]

Also, dunno what the consensus on this is, but personally BG1 > BG2 > ToB. BG1 did a wonderful job in portraying a low level adventure while also having good worldbuilding. BG2 has Irenicus, sure, but he's a neat antagonist in a meandering story. And ToB has... an ok ending for the 'trilogy' (& some cool companion tidbits like with Sarevok) and not much else to brag about.

BG2 is an epic adventure. Even the starting dungeon is quite varied. I found it highly enjoyable for what it was, because it managed to mix the concept of living in the Forgotten Realms with dungeon crawling by having a lot of content where you interacted with NPCs in non-combat situations, which helped greatly to punctuate the combat situations.

the combat is shit and it's ugly but you do you

 

[Jvegi]

the combat is shit and it's ugly but you do you

You are shit and ugly.

 

[Vormulak]

the combat is shit and it's ugly but you do you

You are shit and ugly.

okay jewkraine troon

 

[almondblight]

Most "Doom clones" weren't even Doom clones, but Wolfenstein 3D clones. No verticality whatsoever, walls have only 90 degree angles, etc. They were obsolete the moment they came out because that's just so utterly limiting compared to what Doom added to the genre just with its different height levels and slanted walls. There are only so many ways you can re-arrange flat rectangles until you run out of level design ideas.

Most were more 2.5D games with some verticality like Doom, there were far less Wolf 3D clones (which makes sense, the gap between Wolf 3D and Doom was smaller than the gap between Doom and quake). Many had more verticality than Doom, requiring that you actually aim in three dimensions.

Pathways into Darkness (Phelot used something from it as his avatar) did a pretty good way of making Wolf3D games interesting, though, by adding some adventure and RPG elements to the game.