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

[Darkzone]

Decline is just a combination of lack of both culture and talent, nothing to do with numbers.

You cannot divorce the monster from the act of its creation and here lies the problem in your statement.
The act of creating Minotauros is the act of bestiality. One Minotauros is result of specific sin against a god, a entire race is a lifestyle habit of the population. One Minotauros poses as a bitter warning especially it exposes everything, while an entire race is just a degenerate bestiality joke.
Numbers - Numbers always matter and not only in mathematics, physics, engineering and etc.. but also in story telling.

You can make a good story with lots of minotaurs, you just have to try harder. What about Aliens(1986)?

There are 3 possible uses for this Question of "What about Aliens(1986)?". The first is a honest factual question asking for explanation of this case. The second is an attempt of "here i got you" and the last is a form of Socratesian "Dialog" question as in "think carefully about it" because you could be mistaken. While i do not think that you intend the first (from the context), i rather think that intend the later ones, but it fails utterly esspecially with this example which cannot be worse for this intended purpose.
Aliens (1986) is a sequel to Alien (1979). Therefore i would suggest that we look at Alien (1976) first since this is the first appearence of this "insectoid" Monster. The Xenomorph features abilities that exist in the insecta class, like the two mouths, acid defence, exoskeleton as armor and different stages of development that are parasitoid (like Ichneumon wasps). (Different attributes were added later, but are also inscta based.) The first contact between this species and humans is on board the Alien Vessel where Kane (had to look the name up) discovers the chamber full of hunderts of Xenomorph eggs. And from this the events unfold resulting in a classical Horror:
Group of People in an isolated (castle, horror house, wood cabine or etc) spaceship Nostromo (in poland the film was called "The 8th Passenger of the Nostromo") that are killed or picked up one by one, due to their inability to stay protected together as a group. But this kind of Xenomorph monster and the film has no intrinsic message about morals or existance or anything else. Naturally we can always put something in there, like "Xenophobia is good, listen to Cassandra Ripley and do not let the infected in your midst". So yes the moral from this story can be only homophobic (Cpt. Dallas saving Kane) and racist and i don't have any problem with it. But what is important about the Xenomorph is that it is an entire species not just a freak experiment or event.
The Aliens (1986) couldn't go directly this route without repeating itself (and by doing it losing its worth) therefore some of the premise had to be changed. The traits of the Xenomorph could be kept since they were quite open for any sequel, but it couldn't be made as a classical horror film since we already knew the Xenomorph. The premise of the isolated group of people has been kept with the difference that because the audience know the Xenomorph they had to face an danger in different form than just one Xenomorph. So welcome to the horde attack (Zombies and Insectoids are most prolific). Aliens (1986) is one of the best action films ever made and cemented the Ripley character as best female heroic protagonist.

The synopsis:
From the start the Xenomorph is very different kind of monster than the Minotaur, becasue the act of its creation (reproduction) is the most horrific aspect of this monster (you are kept alive till it hetches out of you) that bears no judgment, moral values or any specific message (besides perhaps keep away from parasites and we humans are just part of nature) and this made the sequel in this form possible and therefore the sequel was as good as it was (but the rest of the film series failed). But the amount (Numbers) of the Xenomorph made it to an Action movie, instead of it being a classical horror movie.
Therefore you can have an faceless army of Xenomorphs or Insectoids or Zombies, but you cannot have an army of Jasons, Micheal Mayers or Freddy Kruegers and even a army of Predators is a failure as we have seen in Predators.

 

[Machocruz]

Also, to make Aliens work they had to change the behavior of the creature, from languid ambush predator to rabid movie monster hell-bent on getting at the protagonists at nearly all times.

 

[orcinator]

RPGs main weaknesses, shallow mechanics that amount to little more than watching numbers go up and a high reliance on player knowledge over player skill are also what makes it an incredibly strong if you want to get a lot of people addicted and make a ton of money.
Your classic RPG that amounts to a mix of (shallow) character building (bad) combat, some (simplistic or nonexistant) adventure game elements and (limited) cyoa elements might not make billions but a gatcha game with big numbers will.

 

[orcinator]

a army of Predators is a failure as we have seen in Predators.

That movie was okay and had like 6 predators total.

 

[Darkzone]

Also, to make Aliens work they had to change the behavior of the creature, from languid ambush predator to rabid movie monster hell-bent on getting at the protagonists at nearly all times.

This is correct. The first encounter and the attack on the dropship could be considered an ambush, but it does not contradict your statement since it shows the Xenomorp being faster and more agile than humans. In the Alien (1979) the Xenomorph is never shown to move fast, not even in the maintenance shafts of the Nostromo where it could have been utilised without a problem. With the second encounter the Xenomorphs become just pure running Zombies without tactics ( besides using the unsealed ceiling for entrance ).
How awsome are this movies! And fuck Hollywood has not produced a single very good action horror sci-fi movie since Aliens (1986) ( i give here room for Starship Troopers and Event Horizont (Horror)).

a army of Predators is a failure as we have seen in Predators.

That movie was okay and had like 6 predators total.

Spoiler

It was Ok, but not good and only due to the nice looking cinematics. And while it is worth to be seen once, it is not worth to be seen more than 2 times. Pandorum (2009) was a better movie in my opinion and it has to been seen twice to get all the hints.

 

[Falksi]

Also, to make Aliens work they had to change the behavior of the creature, from languid ambush predator to rabid movie monster hell-bent on getting at the protagonists at nearly all times.

I always put that down to strength in numbers & the Alien being fairly intelligent.

All alone, with no parent or hero figure in sight, against a crew who's strength/weapons you've no gauge on? Caution would seem wise. Yes you're a killing machine, but your sussing yourself out & don't know the odds you're up against.

Born on home-base with a thousand mates & big mama all nested up with you? Bring it on! Attack!

 

[Viata]

I consider that as "writers not giving a shit to the original version and making up things so that it works for the new movie".

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Aliens shifted the film genre from horror/thriller to action, and the number and behavior of the xenomorphs was altered accordingly. Interestingly, IMDB lists the American box office returns at just slightly higher for Aliens in 1986 ($85 million) than for Alien in 1979 ($82 million), and that's without an adjustment for inflation, so the sequel actually performed worse financially.

 

[Ninjerk]

I suspected for some time that Aliens was a Vietnam movie. I was unaware of Cameron's commentary but here's a YT commentator talking about it:


I'm not sure about the "losing war" bit, but Cameron's commentary is worth hearing.

 

[RNGsus]

Also, to make Aliens work they had to change the behavior of the creature, from languid ambush predator to rabid movie monster hell-bent on getting at the protagonists at nearly all times.

I always put that down to strength in numbers & the Alien being fairly intelligent.

All alone, with no parent or hero figure in sight, against a crew who's strength/weapons you've no gauge on? Caution would seem wise. Yes you're a killing machine, but your sussing yourself out & don't know the odds you're up against.

Born on home-base with a thousand mates & big mama all nested up with you? Bring it on! Attack!

The Aliens aliens were dumber because they had numbers. The Alien alien was backed into a corner and alone so it had to hunt smarter. Like Rambo.

 

[Machocruz]

I always put that down to strength in numbers & the Alien being fairly intelligent.

All alone, with no parent or hero figure in sight, against a crew who's strength/weapons you've no gauge on? Caution would seem wise. Yes you're a killing machine, but your sussing yourself out & don't know the odds you're up against.

Born on home-base with a thousand mates & big mama all nested up with you? Bring it on! Attack!

The Aliens aliens were dumber because they had numbers. The Alien alien was backed into a corner and alone so it had to hunt smarter. Like Rambo.

I've come up with similar explanations, but the thing about the original is that its behavior is more like a real world predatory animal(with some disturbing human-like implications) than a relentless movie monster. The movie leaves room to imagine the creature only hunts when it needs to and otherwise is fucking off doing whatever it is animals do with themselves. This is a bit more sophisticated and more interesting vision, imo. Now, the case can be made that it becomes more aggressive as the film goes on, from Brett being random opportunity coming along to full-on stalking the hallways looking for fun.

But it never hell-bent to do anything it does, even when it has advantage. Then in Aliens they're running into sentry gun fire by the scores and trying to break down doors. And I just rhymed. But it's fine. Aliens is my second favorite movie of all time, I wouldn't change anything. Maybe they were like "these niggas stepped on our Jordans. This means war." This works with the insect analogy that Cameron came up with, like hornets will mob you without restraint if you disturb the nest.

But the behavior becomes the standard ever after so that when we go back to a lone alien (e.g. Covenant, Isolation, etc.), it's still acting like it's on bath salts.

 

[Darkzone]

I always put that down to strength in numbers & the Alien being fairly intelligent.
All alone, with no parent or hero figure in sight, against a crew who's strength/weapons you've no gauge on? Caution would seem wise. Yes you're a killing machine, but your sussing yourself out & don't know the odds you're up against.
Born on home-base with a thousand mates & big mama all nested up with you? Bring it on! Attack!

The Aliens aliens were dumber because they had numbers. The Alien alien was backed into a corner and alone so it had to hunt smarter. Like Rambo.

I've come up with similar explanations, but the thing about the original is that its behavior is more like a real world predatory animal(with some disturbing human-like implications) than a relentless movie monster. The movie leaves room to imagine the creature only hunts when it needs to and otherwise is fucking off doing whatever it is animals do with themselves. This is a bit more sophisticated and more interesting vision, imo. Now, the case can be made that it becomes more aggressive as the film goes on, from Brett being random opportunity coming along to full-on stalking the hallways looking for fun.

But it never hell-bent to do anything it does, even when it has advantage. Then in Aliens they're running into sentry gun fire by the scores and trying to break down doors. And I just rhymed. But it's fine. Aliens is my second favorite movie of all time, I wouldn't change anything. Maybe they were like "these niggas stepped on our Jordans. This means war." This works with the insect analogy that Cameron came up with, like hornets will mob you without restraint if you disturb the nest.

But the behavior becomes the standard ever after so that when we go back to a lone alien (e.g. Covenant, Isolation, etc.), it's still acting like it's on bath salts.

Normally hives act smarter than each individual member of the hive only Humans act just the opposite. Lone wolves prefer smaller prey than in hunting pact where they can chase a prey to wear down, before they can finish it off.
The smarts of the individual Xenomorph (Colonists vs Xenomorphs) is indicated in Aliens and it is shown in the Hive Queen scenes (flame thrower stand down, bording of the dropship, elimnating Bishop first) and the Sentry Gun Units scene where the Xenomorphs retreated after loosing high numbers.
But they still behave like Zombies running into the gunfire of the Mariens instead of encircling them and attacking from all sides to keep the loses at a minimum. But to be honest we human act also in this way very often especially in Armies (17 - Vietnam War ( Vietcong attacks) ).
The Xenomorphs behaviour in Alien was more of a predator ( lurking and stalking ) attacking from a rather safe position (perhaps due to fact that it was alone) that changed to a assult attack to overrun the Marines postions in Aliens. By making the Xenomorph faster and more agile in Aliens they could wrap up the speed to display the chaos and turn this into an action film. If they would have kept the behaviour of the Xenomorph from Alien then it wouldn't be as action loaded, but it would be rather laughable and unbelievable (due to the equipment of the Marines).
Perhaps the control of the Queen in a Hive suppress (due to hormones or other triggers) the individual smart behaviour of the Xenomorph, that is needed to survive on its own without a Hive? Perhaps the cunning behaviour of the Xenomorph in Alien was just coincidental and only a result of stupid actions by the Nostromo crew with the mapping desire of an unknown terrain of the Xenomorph? Eitherway what we come up it is just to fill the our void of lack of knowledge about the Xenomorph that perhaps was never intended to be filled.
Slow moving- lurking and stalking Xenomorph makes a good horror movie monster, but a bad action movie monster. The other way around is quite possible and therefore its attributes from Aliens have been kept in later films.

 

[Kainan]

Decline is just a combination of lack of both culture and talent, nothing to do with numbers.

You cannot divorce the monster from the act of its creation and here lies the problem in your statement.
The act of creating Minotauros is the act of bestiality. One Minotauros is result of specific sin against a god, a entire race is a lifestyle habit of the population. One Minotauros poses as a bitter warning especially it exposes everything, while an entire race is just a degenerate bestiality joke.
Numbers - Numbers always matter and not only in mathematics, physics, engineering and etc.. but also in story telling.

You can make a good story with lots of minotaurs, you just have to try harder. What about Aliens(1986)?

There are 3 possible uses for this Question of "What about Aliens(1986)?". The first is a honest factual question asking for explanation of this case. The second is an attempt of "here i got you" and the last is a form of Socratesian "Dialog" question as in "think carefully about it" because you could be mistaken. While i do not think that you intend the first (from the context), i rather think that intend the later ones, but it fails utterly esspecially with this example which cannot be worse for this intended purpose.
Aliens (1986) is a sequel to Alien (1979). Therefore i would suggest that we look at Alien (1976) first since this is the first appearence of this "insectoid" Monster. The

It was an honest question.
It was implied that number of minotaurs somehow prevents a good story. However, there is no corelation between increased numbers and degeneration. Aliens was just an example as it was still scary even with more aliens. But this difference was offset by having soldiers with guns ( or the other way around) Simmilarly some ancient storyteller with many minotaurs in a story would add soldiers like spearmen and such instead of just one guy.

 

[Darkzone]

It was an honest question.
It was implied that number of minotaurs somehow prevents a good story. However, there is no corelation between increased numbers and degeneration. Aliens was just an example as it was still scary even with more aliens. But this difference was offset by having soldiers with guns ( or the other way around) Simmilarly some ancient storyteller with many minotaurs in a story would add soldiers like spearmen and such instead of just one guy.

And yet your explanation below speaks different. It seems that you have not read my explanation what the difference is.
Therefore again: The aliens were always created as a entire species with all of its attributes, while the minotaur is an oddity and a moral story with a warning. Our moral stories traditions, like Hansel and Gretel depict one specific danger with a specific warning (how this relates to the minotaur is to long to write especially to someone who does not care to read the my replies thoroughly and therefore i would just waste my time in doing it). The warning could be like: don't go alone to forests and do not trust strangers.
Where would the moral of Hansel and Gretel be, if in that forest there would have been a horde of Witches hunting them, while they were constantly on the run and the witches were throwing deadly gingerbread after them?
Also once again with definition of degenaration:
Degeneration is a process of losing functionality and descending to a lesser state. Something is degenerate if it has lost its normal state and has assumed a lesser state (lesser or negative functionality), might it be in physical, mental, moral or social. Therefore:
The sole existence of the Minotauros is the result of amoral behavior that serves as a warning to not act this way. Many Minotauroi are not a warning, but a description of a usus and a norm (social) in this created world. In this setting the moral of the story is degenerated like the morals and society of the created world.
How the created world and the real world inteact is an other topic, but there are reasons why the LGBTQNPZ are pushing for representation in fiction and media.
A good story plays along the reality of real world and despite using fictional elements it tries to preserve the believability of the setting and actions of the characters (realism), while conveing a message (moral of the story) to the audiance. Therefore the heroes journey (monomyth) is such a strong story architecture, because it conveys to the audience that no matter what you do you will fail in the beginning and by training you will grow in skills as in character until you become proficient in that task.

Instead of just one guy? Are you kidding me? This guy is Theseus! This man is one of the greatest heroes in greek mythology that partook in the Argonauten voyage, hunt the Calydonian Boar, killed the Crommyonian Sow and captured and killed the Cretan Bull. He was also a cousin of Heracles, who was his idol. Please read at least a good analytical book about european storytelling and the Hero and also my replies thoroughly.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Theseus sure like Bovines and related.

 

[Maggot]

Everything lilura posts is wrong this thread specifically is incredibly sad. Jagged alliance 2 is wizardy 8 under the hood. A level 9 soldier is basically a level 9 fighter ala wizardry so of course they wtf stomp level 3-5 characters if you give them a weapon with high acc like a rifle. Once your understand the mechanics behind the stats and stuff as a tactics game jagged alliance 2 is incredibly overrated. Silent storm was a better tactics game.

Don't join the losers club folks.

Silent Storm's mechanics are terrible compared to JA2. There isn't even AP loss from getting shot in the head unless you randomly score a wound, the gun balance is all over the place, and you have to mod it or else whatever characters you play with are 10x weaker than the ones that stay back at base.

 

[sys0nar]

RPGs died in 1992, there are only 14 total viable RPGs, 7 of which stilll have some major flaws, the RPG genre is dead.

 

[Kalin]

Joined: Oct 19, 2020

 

[kreight]

Oh yes yes its dead and weak. 14 you say? Ok.

Just listen to yourself. Fucking buffoons.

 

[Jvegi]

14 total viable RPGs, 7 of which stilll have some major flaws

No fucking way there are 7 good crpgs without major flaws.

 

[JarlFrank]

Monsters are more interesting when they're rare rather than commonly encountered trash mobs.

News at 11.

 

[Jrpgfan]

There aren't any real contenders currently. Shooters are incredibly niche in Japan and the concept of aiming with a mouse is relatively foreign. Turn based strategy is already fused with JRPGs in the SRPG. RTS never existed in the east and are dead in the west. The Japanese aren't terribly interested in sports games, or sport in general, apart from party games.
Yakuza style games might develop further and shed their rpg elements in favor of open world GTA style games with the success of Ghost of Tsushima, but that is rather unlikely, as the newest Yakuza will be a turn based rpg.




Ever since they got their hands on bootleg copies of Ultima 1 really. They got Wizardry a little later in 1985, and it always had a lesser influence than Ultima, which spawned Dragon Quest (Warrior) 1.

Wizardry has always been more popular in Japan and DQ had more influence from Wizardry than Ultima. Theres a whole manga released by the developers on the subject(its called Road to Dragon Quest) .

Enviado de meu SM-G950F usando o Tapatalk

 

[samuraigaiden]

The problem with this entire discussion is at it's opposite end. What is the strongest traditional genre in gaming? There is only one right answer. You guessed it. Shmups (or STG for the japs). It's the most beautiful, pure form of videogame. Almost nobody plays them - and most people who do admittedly suck at them.

Arguably, the success of the RPG genre isn't achieved despite it's weakness, but rather because of it. Despite having the word "game" in the name, the RPG genre is at it's best when it produces an experience that is more toy than game.

At the highest level, the best - and strongest - of videogame genres presents the complexity of building and mastering the control of a radio-controlled aircraft, while peak performance RPGs takes the player to the mental state of a toddler playing with a plastic toy plane, with utter joy and total abandon.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

 

[moon knight]

RPG is a dead genre. CDPR is kill. Bioware is a rotten corpse. Obsidian is Microsoft's bitch and the last good game they released was New Vegas 10 years ago. Vampire The Masquerade is in development hell. Larian games are cringe.

We have hit peak decline, there's no coming back