1eyedking Top 10 things that RPGs don't do anymore

[Goral]

Remember my first time as a virgin of the wasteland - gosh I needed THAT Gauss Rifle....

Sp you've started with F2 not F1? Decline.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Goral]

wise men start with superior title

So he's not a wise man then.

 

[Baron Dupek]

I started with Fo2 too (this CDA issue came into my house first) then Fo1 more than decade later and I would not call sequel a better one.
On paper it looks good and improved in some ways but watering down wastelant atmosphere was the worst thing, I guess it's on par with Fo4 (didn't played that one, only saw videos).

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Didn't Arena had a spell that allowed you to destroy walls?

This single line reminded me of a couple of spells in Legend of Faerghail (1990). That game has a manual that is well worth taking to the shitter, for among the many good things it does is that it lists every spell in the game (200+), and those spells I mentioned are brought up in a somewhat negative tone.

One brilliant wizard created a spell that would automatically commit the layout of the immediate surroundings of the caster to a piece of parchment. That wizard in particular was later assassinated by a cooperative effort of the Dwarven Clans and the Dungeon Architect Guild, but not before he could create an orb that granted its wielder the same power. While the spell is accessible in-game, the orb is a much easier (and useful) target for players to go for to get auto-mapping.

Another high-level spell destroys dungeon walls. The creator of that spell was outright lynched for his "good deed", but the spell lives on among the Guild of Blacksmiths. Yes, LoF has Blacksmiths as a class...with spellcasting abilities...and the aforementioned spell is one of their top-tier spells. I've heard that the devs restricted the usage of the spells by having some walls indestructible, but at least the option is there.

(There should be enough in there for felipepepe to acknowledge for whatever devious scheme he's planning.)

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Problem is, while that all works well in first-person view, the omnipresent 3rd-person "behind the back" camera makes most of those tricks impossible - you can't seamlessly teleport a player in a game like The Witcher or Dark Souls without him noticing.

It has been done flawlessly in modern 3D FPP in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat and there is no difference between FPP and TPP other than the offset of the camera - in both cases you'd need closely matching environments and just teleport without any visible effects.

Even Super Mario Bros did that. Taking the wrong route on Bowser's castle will put you on a loop.



There's also the Lost Woods on 2D and 3D Zeldas.

Or are you going to continue to ignore my point and just wank over Fallout like its the only RPG you ever played.

What was your point? Not trying to be funny, but I don't think you made it very clear.

He means rushing the game is a waste since the biggest fun in a RPG is fucking around with sidequests and exploration, even though plotlines will usually urge you to the contrary. But part of the charm of FO is that you were actually in a hurry, and had to decide on the right time to skip town, making a mental note to explore more of X in another playthrough. I like FO2 more but the practically infinite time limit really changes the atmosphere - the Enclave soldiers would be much scarier if I couldn't simply wait to tackle them only once I'm a physical god.

 

[Zombra]

Room for Imagination.

 

[Zombra]

The use of quest compasses and player GPS/google maps has ruined the sense of discovery in RPGs. In older RPGs, quest givers had to provide specific details on how to arrive at a person/place/objective. Something like "two blocks north, across from the tree and next to the blue house". When presented that way, a quest forces you to navigate the world - to process it and analyze it in a way that is entirely absent from following a compass, where your eyes are locked on the UI element and not thinking about the construction of the world. If there was a quest journal, it needed a similar level of specificity to help you arrive at your goal.

This is gigantic. The UI should be there to help you interact with the game ... instead in many cases the UI has become the game.

I still remember the thrill of finding "Fargoth's Hiding Place" by watching him go hide stuff in it instead of the UI telling me that was where it was.

 

[Lhynn]

Tits.

 

[Goral]

Women tits.

Fixed.

And they still do that, probably even more.

 

[Lhynn]

And they still do that, probably even more.

Where? do show please.

 

[Goral]

Witcher series. Before that there was only Bloodlines AFAIK (not counting weaboo shit).

 

[Excidium II]

Witcher series heavily decreased the amount of tits with each new game. At the rate, next game would have no tits.

 

[Ranarama]

Bah the tits in the first Witcher were just cards. Would you really want to see breasts rendered in the engine that gave us this:

 

[Excidium II]

There were plenty of tits outside cards, on monsters too.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

* Gameplay using astronomy/ day night cycles, mapping with coordinates and quest lore (digging for powerful magic reagents at a certain spot at night when the moons are in a certain phase)
* Deriving gameplay depth & immersion from a system of NPCs with motivations, schedules, activities etc to immerse you in the wo
* Exploration using your brain, in-game items (latitude, longitude)
* Ship travel with ocean depth and wind direction playing a big part
basically the ultima series pre-EA

I love Ultima but most of that shit is just plain annoying to me. Waiting for moongates to appear, waiting for the wind to change, having to mix a spell to make the wind change, ship travel in general, waiting for a shop to open .. all that stuff puts gameplay to a grinding halt by needlessly complicating what should be simple tasks. Not sure what it offers in return.

 

[Beastro]

Didn't Tyranny have time-limit?

http://tyranny.gamepedia.com/Edict_of_Execution

The Overlord has decreed that all in the valley on Kyros' Day of Swords shall die unless Kyros' representative holds Ascension Hall. Note that it's perfectly possible to rest until after Kyros' Day of Swords before the Edict is pronounced. In this case, the Edict will function as intended, except the Execution date will be set a year away. The Overlord did not specify the year, after all.

 

[ilitarist]

I wonder what games are you playing.

Everything being voice acted - do you just play BioWare/Bethesda games? Lately we've got Tyranny and Banner Saga 2, those have tons of text.

No side content? The problem with big AAA games is too much side content in those very games made by BioWare/Bethesda. BioWare probably hires dozens of writers to write all those pages of lore and dialogues and meaningless descriptions for everything. And just go launch Dragon Age Inquisition, they filled the game with meaningless side quests and collectibles, because since Assassins Creed every game has to be open world and hundreds of hours of collecting stuff on the map. Effort is spread thin.

I've just replayed Fallout 1 and the thing I've liked was having a bravery to create a small world. Every RPG out there tries to promise you a huge journey. Fallout 1 has rather small but detailed world that makes sense. Fallout New Vegas is somewhat similar but there it doesn't make as much sense because this 5 sq km territory is supposed to be 500 sq km. I think only Grimrock 1 has similar brevity.

 

[Beastro]

In (early) Everquest you could even become immobile if you carried too much cash. When they introduced a market in a later expansion, they disabled/reduced money weight there, but you had to store your cash at the bank before leaving or you'd still not be able to move. (And you could change copper / silver / gold / platinum pieces only at a bank.)

I'll add to that that the four levels of currency had increasingly greater weight the less valuable they were, which were 10 for every 1 piece of the next type: 10CP = 1SP, 10SP = 1 GP, 10GP = 1PP.

This resulted in being overloaded with copper and silver and having to drop or destroy it to free up weight better spent on hording more platinum and gold that might drop, while the fat races were able to pack that on and and make a bit more extra cash to counter their abysmal charisma which played a not so small roll in vendoring trash items.

 

[Tito Anic]

I think one of the best things we have lost, not only in RPG, is the panic, paranoia and FEAR by not being able to save at any time you want.

Heard anything about roguelikes?

 

[Grumpy Grognard]

Didn't Arena had a spell that allowed you to destroy walls?

This single line reminded me of a couple of spells in Legend of Faerghail (1990). That game has a manual that is well worth taking to the shitter, for among the many good things it does is that it lists every spell in the game (200+), and those spells I mentioned are brought up in a somewhat negative tone.

One brilliant wizard created a spell that would automatically commit the layout of the immediate surroundings of the caster to a piece of parchment. That wizard in particular was later assassinated by a cooperative effort of the Dwarven Clans and the Dungeon Architect Guild, but not before he could create an orb that granted its wielder the same power. While the spell is accessible in-game, the orb is a much easier (and useful) target for players to go for to get auto-mapping.

Another high-level spell destroys dungeon walls. The creator of that spell was outright lynched for his "good deed", but the spell lives on among the Guild of Blacksmiths. Yes, LoF has Blacksmiths as a class...with spellcasting abilities...and the aforementioned spell is one of their top-tier spells. I've heard that the devs restricted the usage of the spells by having some walls indestructible, but at least the option is there.

(There should be enough in there for felipepepe to acknowledge for whatever devious scheme he's planning.)

+ Ultima seriess, almost forgot: some of the best spells (Uus Por and Des Por) could be cast to travel 'up' or 'down' one dungeon level, which was tile-mapped from memory, so you could end up in a mongbat's shitter if you weren't careful.

Best manual art for the spell, too: http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/images/2/2d/Zdown.gif

 

[Lhynn]

Witcher series. Before that there was only Bloodlines AFAIK (not counting weaboo shit).

Oh come on, the first game dialogues with womyn played like cheap porn, it was fucking amazing. The third game was tame and lame by comparison.

Also i disagree, dont let me dig up bikini chainmails you asshole.

 

[pippin]

There is an unused sex animation in twitcher1 that iirc was used for a fanmade adventure with Yennefer.
If you've seen those sleeping animations where characters punch and kick the air, imagine that but with one character on top of another.

Tasteful rape?

 

[an Administrator]

Including monsters that can drain your level.

 

[SCO]

One thing i want is more unique rewards that interact with a part of the story or world. Getting a new spell in Quest for Glory, getting the dragon upgrade in Divine Divinity 2, making the black sword in Ultima 7. There was a time in that stuff like this was more common.

These things are most effective when weaved into the narrative as more than part of a subsystem. They can absolutely be a quest reward, and be integrated with a mechanic (though i personally prefer if they're one of a kind in function), but they should open new story, text or quests after and not be simply +1 or the culmination of a single quest. Morrowind was pretty bad about this, the only good example was stolen ordinator armour iirc.

It doesn't have to be anything super epic or fundamental to the critical path. I loved the named items on Ultima 7 you could find by following book clues (though they didn't have many uses later, ah well).


I also like a story that tries to give a sense of history, if that makes sense. Azrael's Tear impressed me on how the main villain isn't even present in the game, but his actions and presence is implied on the whole dungeon though the history he almost single-handedly fucked up and traps. A similar feeling was had in ultima underworld 1, though that was the optimism of the founder. I like it when world design goes further than 'last tuesday, the fire nation invaded and you got out of the dungeon $PLAYER'. Ultima 7 part 2 was really nice about this, with its post-apocalypse setting that harked back to the previous games factions evolutions.