Jagged Alliance The RPG genre is weak. Very weak. Probably the weakest traditional genre in gaming

[rusty_shackleford]

levels per se don't matter as long as you have skills (see AoD for a level-less example).

Reminds me of ICE's description of levels in their Spacemaster rulebook

If anything, cRPGs should lean more towards not having levels.

 

[Latro]

"rpgs must require magic" is a new one, haven't heard that before lol

 

[rusty_shackleford]

"rpgs must require magic" is a new one, haven't heard that before lol

It's false though.
It's psionics that all RPGs are required to have.

 

[mondblut]

HoMM is a strategy game about raising armies in your production centers and conquering enemy production centers.

Aren't you conquering enemy production centers in JA2 as well?

Does securing mines reduce military capabilities of Deidranna? Does she run out of money and have to dismiss the Meduna garrison and sell tanks for scrap due to your strategic initiative?

If not, no, you aren't conquering enemy production centers in JA2.

 

[Jason Liang]

X-Com, as do other pure squad tactics games, completely lacks the "go adventuring across a vast open-ended world... explore and loot places for items and money, converse to NPCs and do quests" part. It's a sequence of set-piece combat scenarios, glorified chess with strategy elements (base-building and research) on top.

What you describe is the characteristic of Adventure games, whether they be King's Quest or GTA or Red Dead Redemption. This doesn't make JA an rpg.

What separates RPGs from adventure games? Hmm... Strong elements typical for squad tactics games?

Wrong.

What makes RPGs different from adventure games are rule systems, and not just for combat. That's why a rule system for magic is part of what defines rpgs. Part of the experience of an rpg is learning the game's system.

 

[mondblut]

X-Com, as do other pure squad tactics games, completely lacks the "go adventuring across a vast open-ended world... explore and loot places for items and money, converse to NPCs and do quests" part. It's a sequence of set-piece combat scenarios, glorified chess with strategy elements (base-building and research) on top.

What you describe is the characteristic of Adventure games, whether they be King's Quest or GTA or Red Dead Redemption. This doesn't make JA an rpg.

What separates RPGs from adventure games? Hmm... Strong elements typical for squad tactics games?

Wrong.

What makes RPGs different from adventure games are rule systems, and not just for combat. That's why a rule system for magic is part of what defines rpgs. Part of the experience of an rpg is learning the game's system.

Squad tactics invented these rule systems, dummy. The original RPG is a bastard child of Chainmail and the maze game, do I have to spell it to you? All computer RPGs carry the Colossal Cave DNA as much as adventure games do.

 

[Jason Liang]

Let me give a clear example.

When you do modding for BG2 or NWN, the rpg systems information, which is what makes BG2 an rpg, are all stored in the 2da files. JA2 doesn't have anything equivalent to Infinity Engine's 2da files, because it doesn't define the game world in rpg systems, which is why it's not an rpg. You take Bloodlines or Dragonfall and look at the code, and all the rpg systems are defined in files just like Infinity Engine. That's what JA2 lacks, those tables that define rules and rule interactions.

Those tables are the essence of rpgs. Which is why Bioware created the 2da file type in the first place.

 

[Viata]

Learning the game's system of Dragon's Age 2:
Press a button, something awesome has to happens.

 

[Butter]

Let me give a clear example.

When you do modding for BG2 or NWN, the rpg systems information, which is what makes BG2 an rpg, are all stored in the 2da files. JA2 doesn't have anything equivalent to Infinity Engine's 2da files, because it doesn't define the game world in rpg systems, which is why it's not an rpg. You take Bloodlines or Dragonfall and look at the code, and all the rpg systems are defined in files just like Infinity Engine. That's what JA2 lacks, those tables that define rules and rule interactions.

Those tables are the essence of rpgs.

This is such a mongoloid retard argument I'm having trouble believing it.

 

[mondblut]

Let me give a clear example.

When you do modding for BG2 or NWN, the rpg systems information, which is what makes BG2 an rpg, are all stored in the 2da files. JA2 doesn't have anything equivalent to Infinity Engine's 2da files, because it doesn't define the game world in rpg systems, which is why it's not an rpg. You take Bloodlines or Dragonfall and look at the code, and all the rpg systems are defined in files just like Infinity Engine. That's what JA2 lacks, those tables that define rules and rule interactions.

Those tables are the essence of rpgs.

You mean... like this?

I briefly wondered why did I have you on ignore. Now I do realize it.

 

[Jason Liang]

No, not like that all.

That's an .ini file. Every game has those. Pretty much every program has .ini files.

.ini files do not define the rules systems for a world. They are not equivalent to 2da files.

 

[mondblut]

No, not like that all.

If only the developers knew that giving their megabytes upon megabytes of rule tables and configuration files an extension that is not ".2da" would disqualify JA2 from being considered a proper RPG 20 years down the line, they would... probably not give a fuck.

 

[Viata]

I guess you just need to check if a game has .2da file and you know if it is an rpg or not. Who would guess it was this easy?

 

[Jason Liang]

No, not like that all.

If only the developers knew that giving their megabytes upon megabytes of rule tables and configuration files an extension that is not ".2da" would disqualify JA2 from being considered a proper RPG 20 years down the line, they would... probably not give a fuck.

This is why you are missing the essence of what makes JA2 not like ToEE.

 

[Viata]

missing the essence

 

[Jason Liang]

I guess you just need to check if a game has .2da file and you know if it is an rpg or not. Who would guess it was this easy?

JA2 lacks a 2da equivalent. It lacks this because it doesn't need one. It doesn't need one because it isn't a rpg. It's a squad tactics/ management/ adventure hybrid, none of which makes use of world rules systems.

 

[mondblut]

No, not like that all.

If only the developers knew that giving their megabytes upon megabytes of rule tables and configuration files an extension that is not ".2da" would disqualify JA2 from being considered a proper RPG 20 years down the line, they would... probably not give a fuck.

This is why you are missing the essence of what makes JA2 not like ToEE.

Look, I know that you are an idiot and I shouldn't bother, but that poor .ini file does, in fact, define in particular how many times you should fail to disarm a mine in order to increase your Explosives skill by 1, and how much damage bonus your Strength applies to melee attack. So kindly stop talking out of your ass if you've never seen the innards of JA2.

 

[Jason Liang]

No, not like that all.

If only the developers knew that giving their megabytes upon megabytes of rule tables and configuration files an extension that is not ".2da" would disqualify JA2 from being considered a proper RPG 20 years down the line, they would... probably not give a fuck.

This is why you are missing the essence of what makes JA2 not like ToEE.

Look, I know that you are an idiot and I shouldn't bother, but that poor .ini file does, in fact, define in particular how many times you should fail to disarm a mine in order to increase your Explosives skill by 1, and how much damage bonus your Strength applies to melee attack. So kindly stop talking out of your ass if you've never seen the innards of JA2.

Those are game parameters. That's not the point of 2da files.

I know the files layout of JA2 that it doesn't have or use world rule system information.

 

[Lady_Error]

HoMM is a strategy game about raising armies in your production centers and conquering enemy production centers.

Aren't you conquering enemy production centers in JA2 as well?

Does securing mines reduce military capabilities of Deidranna? Does she run out of money and have to dismiss the Meduna garrison and sell tanks for scrap due to your strategic initiative?

If not, no, you aren't conquering enemy production centers in JA2.

Conquering the production centers in JA2 may not decrease the enemy's capability, but it does increase yours.

RPG's are not usually based on owning more and more production centers to win the game.

 

[mondblut]

Those are game parameters. That's not the point of 2da files.

I know the files layout of JA2 that it doesn't have or use world rule system information.

Okay, I'll play along. What kind of "world rule systems" do your precious 2da files carry that JA2 configuration tables don't?

 

[Viata]

RPG's are not usually based

Doesn't mean an rpg should not be allowed to do that.

 

[mondblut]

Conquering the production centers may not decrease the enemy's capability, but it does increase yours.

Without the former, this hardly matters. A proper strategy is a symmetrical zero-sum game where the rivals play by the same rules and compete for resources they both require. If losing towns doesn't have any real consequences for Deidranna's military capacity, you owning these towns and getting passive income from them isn't in practice any different from having a bank deposit in Might & Magic.

RPG's are not usually based on owning more and more production centers to win the game.

True. Winning the game in RPG is usually based on reaching the impenetrable stronghold of the final boss, killing the hordes of his most powerful henchmen and offing him in a grand spectacular battle.

Which is exactly what you do in JA2, other than a lone cowering woman with a machinegun doesn't give much of a battle once her cronies are out of the picture.

 

[Lady_Error]

RPG's are not usually based

Doesn't mean an rpg should not be allowed to do that.

Let me put it this way: If your game uses primarily elements of strategy games, then it is a strategy game (with RPG elements).

The question is whether there are more strategy elements or RPG elements in JA2.

 

[aweigh]

tfw a game that stores data in the executable can't be an rpg according to jason

 

[Jason Liang]

Those are game parameters. That's not the point of 2da files.

I know the files layout of JA2 that it doesn't have or use world rule system information.

Okay, I'll play along. What kind of "world rule systems" do your precious 2da files carry that JA2 configuration tables don't?

https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Category:2da

For example:
https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Domains.2da governs which cleric domains are in the world and which domain spells clerics receive at each spell level.