Decline What killed off oldschool RPGs?

[Grauken]

Modern games don't fail because they put in too much effort and overwhelm people, that's inane, they fail because they assume that most of their audience consists of retards, hence they are designed for retards

Also, more people working on textures or voiced dialogue doesn't mean more effort is spent on gameplay

 

[ERYFKRAD]

a famous bad thing

t even while bad it still was exceptional compared to the other class of things,

It's clear that DA2 involved much more effort from a lot of people compared to, say, Fallout 1-2.

And again, if in spite of effort, the end result sucked,the effort is neither justifiable nor adequate.

 

[ilitarist]

Even gameplay gets more effort. In most oldschool RPG there was a kitchensink mentality of throwing in whatever sticks. Thus you have no balance and broken mechanics.

And again, they were simpler and easier than many modern RPG. If you don't count fake difficulty like godless UI or trial-and-error gameplay they were never that complex and hard. Divinity Original Sin on tactics mode or Pillars of Eternity on Path of the Damned has nothing to compare in olden games in terms of elegance, variety, thoughtfulness.

 

[Aphex81]

What killed off oldschool RPGs?

Mainstream.

 

[Roguey]

they fail because they assume that most of their audience consists of retards

It's not an assumption.

 

[Delterius]

I thought this was a thread for Goldbox, Wizardry and Might & Magic games

This.

If you think you isometric people have it bad, think about how us turn- and party based blobbers fans have it

embrace the weaboo in you, it shall set you free

of throwing in whatever sticks

And you're using Dragon Age 2 as an example to the contrary?

 

[ilitarist]

DA2 might not have been a good game and there are UI problems (no top-down view for AoE spells) but it's systems are OK. It doesn't have a lot of abilities and there are no useless ones, no overpowered ones. There are interesting choices there. It's challenging not in a cheap way.

Then I try something cool and oldschool. Like Might & Magic 6. When you google that game you learn that some of the skills are completely useless and some are necessary to have in your party, and the game won't tell you until it's too late. And how you'd better restart the game 5 minutes after the beginning because there's a fountain that raises your Luck up to 15 so you'd better reroll your characters with minimum luck. And there are randomly generated companions who can make the game trivial. If it was made today it would be obliterated in reviews because of gameplay which has a lot of stuff just thrown in. But it's classic even if we play it today. When we compare other games to M&M6 we don't compare them to M&M6, we compare them to imaginary version of M&M6 which would be made today and would have perfect UI, perfect graphics and perfect gameplay.

 

[ilitarist]

they fail because they assume that most of their audience consists of retards

It's not an assumption.

Previously their audience consisted of retards having much more time on their hands and much less choice in videogames.

 

[Delterius]

It's challenging not in a cheap way.

Oh yeah.

HP Bloat-ville isn't cheap at all.

 

[Egosphere]

See, that's what I'm talking about. You take for granted the fact that modern games have more models, more lines of dialogue, more stuff in general. As if it's that easier today to produce that stuff. You regard older games in a way similar to school play - "it's great for what was available to them" or something. Or you don't see that often lack of effort was what made those games better - modern games are often filled with stuff to the point it becomes a blur. Even if you consider older games better it's dumb to think people put more effort in them or that there's some distinction from modern ones.

Also I mentioned level geometry because Dragon Age 2 was blamed for reusing content. It did but it was still a lot of maps in there - more than, say, in Witcher 1, maybe more than Witcher 2.

Yeah, it's easier to produce more assets with more detail. Zbrush alone will have you covered for all character and prop and will take a fraction of the time it'd take you to get similar results dragging vertices around in the old 3ds max; automated model unwrapping; a plethora of game engines that will handle all of the heavy lifting for you - from lighting to level streaming. Barriers to entry have collapsed completely. You can now learn the basics of python and some drawing and start pumping out simple 2d adventure games just like that. What could you do even 15 years ago, apart from Flash and actionscript? Learn C++ and OpenGL? A modern rpg is just that - a big content museum. Having a shitload of content is far easier than attempting to implement the mecahnics that would support, say, 20 drastically different character builds. Old games weren't always successful but at least they tried to put the 'R' into the rpg.

Another sticking point is that, Witcher aside (haven't played enough of it), many modern RPGs have shit writing. The plot is often trash - nowhere near Fallout or PST level. They're often also populated by characters who look and sound like they couldn't fight their way out of a pub in Scotland, let alone thrive in their medieval fantasy / post-apoc. settings

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Nothing killed them off, the market simply was never that big to begin with. Publishers chose to focus on larger markets. If the best of the genre sells 200-300k (and many sell way less) that's not going to cut it in the era when a AAA game needs 6 million sales to break even.

In short if you want more classic RPGs, you have to buy them.

 

[Lilura]

characters who look and sound like they couldn't fight their way out of a pub

Who fights their way out of a pub? From what I've seen, guys fight to remain in or to get back in.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Nothing killed them off, the market simply was never that big to begin with. Publishers chose to focus on larger markets. If the best of the genre sells 200-300k (and many sell way less) that's not going to cut it in the era when a AAA game needs 6 million sales to break even.

In short if you want more classic RPGs, you have to buy them.

The best sales-wise were 500k to 2 million for BG and BG2. But yeah, Fallout did like 150k units by the time Fargo left interplay and PST didn’t break 100,000. We are a niche audience, my droogies, a niche audience. Now where is my moloko.

characters who look and sound like they couldn't fight their way out of a pub

Who fights their way out of a pub? From what I've seen, guys fight to remain in or to get back in.

Depends on the pub.

 

[Ninjerk]

characters who look and sound like they couldn't fight their way out of a pub

Who fights their way out of a pub? From what I've seen, guys fight to remain in or to get back in.

 

[c2007]

Really though, video killed the radio star.

It fits this topic as well. Everything must be more accessible, more palatable, more attractive. Form over function, as is the design of the day with planned obsolescence everywhere.

What killed old school RPGs? The decline of society.

 

[Andhaira]

One thing that doesn't get enough mention is that with the advent of 3d and character models even in isometric games, combat looks great BUT after some time watching the same combat animations, not matter how gorgeous, gets boring for many and takes up a lot of time. For instance in ToEE each round of combat started taking up a lot of time and since the game had a shit plot/storyline/crap module people lost interest despite the fantastic combat and proper ruleset implementation.

This is also why devs prefer RTwP instead of Turn Based (the latter being obviously superior for party based rpgs)

 

[Egosphere]

characters who look and sound like they couldn't fight their way out of a pub

Who fights their way out of a pub? From what I've seen, guys fight to remain in or to get back in.

Whoever is in the minority among the old firm supporters

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I've had dreams of walking into a computer store and seeing stacks of big box games of all varying eras. The gold box, the late 90s, the early 2000s. All there, glistening, placed on a high shelf that if a kid tried to grab would have it fall down and kill them because of how immense they were.

You'd choose one, you'd slap that shit on a counter and look the cashier dead in the eye and silently say, "That's right, motherfucker. I'm one of the guys you were warned about." You pay him, you don't want a bag, he insists, you take it reluctantly... but you walk through the mall, you walk to your car, you don't care who sees you with some big slab of gaming goodness poking out. It could be the hottest blonde from Sweden, you pass by her with your copy of Ultima in tow with virile body language that screams "I'm a fucking nerd, get on this big dick."

You go home, you crack that box open, bam, showered with things that showed the people that made this are people like you. Fucking geeks, degenerates, hopefuls and dreamers. Jewelcases, elegant maps, hintbooks, an instruction tome, not a book, a tome and full of artwork.

That was when men were men. When games weren't made by faggots with gauged ears and half shaved pink hair.

Pour one out for the homiez.

 

[circ]

IMO some of the following in varying amounts:

EA/Activision/Microsoft
Consoles
id Software

Computers were kinda niche until PS and Xbox, but every genre was represented in some capacity. With later consoles you suddenly had hardware that could compete with PC hardware, that spelled the end of the PC library, which got replaced by sports titles and action games. All the studios got bought and destroyed by EA, Activision and MS, and all their products were suddenly console oriented. id simply killed off anything that wasn't 3d suddenly.

 

[Ash]

Computers were kinda niche until PS and Xbox, but every genre was represented in some capacity. With later consoles you suddenly had hardware that could compete with PC hardware, that spelled the end of the PC library, which got replaced by sports titles and action games. All the studios got bought and destroyed by EA, Activision and MS, and all their products were suddenly console oriented. id simply killed off anything that wasn't 3d suddenly.

Dude, console hardware used to be consistently superior to PC hardware (regarding gaming performance, rendering capability etc), then after a certain point (early 90s) consoles have nearly always been behind.

"and all their products were suddenly console oriented"

Not so much console oriented as money/business oriented; they went where the most money was. PC devs did sellout big time and focus on consoles yes, but they also did so by consistently making awfully terrible games and somehow selling them really well, which was a pretty new thing even for consoles at the time too. those developers just had fuck all integrity. fuck 'em

 

[circ]

Depends on the genre. And platform too for that matter. C64 and later Amiga and similar had no issues with speed, and Commander Keen had new graphical routines that put PC's at the same level as a SNES platformer or sidescroller. By the time PS1 and Xbox came out, PC had surpassed them.

 

[Ash]

Anyway, I'd argue there's no distinction between oldschool RPG and modern ones.

This guy and all his posts. Agent of decline.

 

[Grauken]

Nah, he's just stupid

 

[ilitarist]

Decline happens in your heads. I remember very similar talk about mainstream and dumbing down about games that regarded as classic today. This is set of biases talking and you don't want to analyze it. You're doing the same thing that rockers did when they heard that thoughtless loud heavy metal; most people who witnessed birth of rock; most people who witnessed birth of rock; most people who witnessed birth of impressionism; most people who witnessed birth painting pictures other than icons in the churches and so on. They too had arguments that looked valid to them and didn't seem like arguments at all from the outside.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Decline happens in your heads. I remember very similar talk about mainstream and dumbing down about games that regarded as classic today. This is set of biases talking and you don't want to analyze it. You're doing the same thing that rockers did when they heard that thoughtless loud heavy metal; most people who witnessed birth of rock; most people who witnessed birth of rock; most people who witnessed birth of impressionism; most people who witnessed birth painting pictures other than icons in the churches and so on. They too had arguments that looked valid to them and didn't seem like arguments at all from the outside.

Did you seriously just compare crappy commercial RPGs to Monet??? So EA is Renoir, Activision is Matisse, Bethesda is Cezanne? My grandmother was a professional sculptor and she’s rolling over in her grave.

Let me explain why you’re wrong using one example: Gustáv Klimt, the second or third best painter of the Austrian expressionist school. Klimt painted gorgeous pictures that were very much ahead of their time. His works were popularly despised but loved by the avant-garde.

Feast your eyes on Judith und Holofernes (that’s the severed head of Holofernes in the lower right corner).

He was painting masterpieces, but he couldn’t make a living out of it. So Klimt decided to go into a different line of business: doing set design for elaborate parties thrown by the Viennese aristocracy. Basically just boring scenery. And he made a killing, because aristocrats would pay lots of money for a famous fancypants artist to paint their cardboard trees. But his sets didn’t have any particular artistic merit because they weren’t supposed to—if he’d tried to paint something good he would’ve lost his job.

What does this have to do with RPG development? Klimt’s paintings are what the best games were like back in the genre’s heyday. Klimt’s crappy party backgrounds for rich people are what pass for big budget RPGs today, the Bethesda and BioWare junk with little merit that nevertheless makes these studios a fortune. With the benefit of a century of hindsight, no one believes Klimt’s later commercial work is better than his real art. Like Klimt, BioWare literally sold out and they haven’t made a halfway decent RPG ever since.

TL;DR... The tension here is not old vs new, it’s true greatness vs the commercial impulse, a story that’s as old as civilization. We’re not too set in our ways to appreciate a brilliant new art form, we simply have taste enough to know what’s good and what’s not. If someone wants to shake up the conventions of the genre (I’m looking at you No Truce with the Furies, which, by the way, would’ve been a great title for an expressionist painting) I look forward to it with tremendous enthusiasm.

To paraphrase Alexander Hamilton, the masses are the asses. It’s very rare for any kind of creative work to be both popular and excellent, and in the few cases where the stars align, a great book or movie or game that does achieve immense commercial success is almost never popular for the right reasons.