Incline What would have to happen for a 2nd cRPG Renaissance?

[Tyranicon]

For discussion purposes, the first cRPG Renaissance is largely considered to be between the mid 90s to the early 2000s. Games would include seminal works such as Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, Arcanum, etc.

While cRPGs are still most certainly a niche genre, over the last few years we've seen a strong resurgence in commercially and critically successful cRPGs, most notably led by Owlcat and Larian (although codex opinion remains... divided over game quality). There are also a large number of indies either released recently, in early access or in development that hold promise.

Discerning members of the codex, what would have to occur for you to consider a 2nd cRPG Renaissance at hand?

 

[Blutwurstritter]

The discovery of time travel.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

A first one.

 

[Dorateen]

Rise of the Blobber

 

[Nano]

A nuclear apocalypse. Maybe something better could be built from the ashes.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

For discussion purposes, the first cRPG Renaissance is largely considered to be between the mid 90s to the early 2000s. Games would include seminal works such as Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, Arcanum, etc.

Bullshit.

 

[Parsifarka]

Vault of Terror

 

[†††]

What would have to happen for a 2nd cRPG Renaissance?

Dev groups being full of straight white males again.

 

[Butter]

The Golden Age and late 90s Renaissance were carried by mainstream publishers catering to a small and diehard audience. In the current era, mainstream publishers and developers have utterly forsaken that original diehard audience in favor of chasing social media shit-eaters. The only reason we're getting good CRPGs at all is because of indies. Aside from the inanity of using the word renaissance to describe two separate eras, those eras are also fundamentally different in character.

 

[karoliner]

Massive purge in the videogames industry to eliminate all degenerates.

 

[Ghulgothas]

A lowering of standards.

 

[Dodo1610]

Another Dotcom bubble. It was a lot easier to get investors back then if you did abything with computers and/or internet.

 

[Forest Dweller]

It's already happened.

 

[curds]

What would have to happen for a 2nd cRPG Renaissance?

Dev groups being full of straight white males again.

Yeah, like Tim Cain!

 

[Ghulgothas]

The complete and total elimination of the Four-Fifths Rule, and the active expurgation of the concept of 'Adverse Impact' from legal texts.

 

[new fucking guy]

Something to funnel money into the genre, so there's a slew of AA quality games like poe as opposed to few big titles and sea of indies fighting for kickstarter bucks from people who already played the former - either promising more of the same, or "real hardcore game not like the mainstream trash". Channel the competition where it actually matters.

 

[NerevarineKing]

Does the period of the last several years have a name? CRPG Revival? CRPG Ressurgance?

 

[†††]

Yeah, like Tim Cain!

He was good when he was in the closet

 

[Humbaba]

You better start believing in a second rpg renaissance. You are in one!

 

[Tyranicon]

I'm personally looking forward to when software becomes increasingly easy to use and solodev/small team RPGs become even more prevalent. Yeah, we'll undoubtedly be flooded with utter shit, but it'll be worth it if we get a few gems.

Hell, maybe we'll even get auteur games with interesting and novel ideas.

 

[V_K]

One thing to consider is that for old-school gamers of the 90s it wasn't Renaissance but steep decline dominated by Diablo-clones and popamole shooter wannabes. So if another Renaissance happened, the Codex would likely be the last place to acknowledge it. It might very well be that old-school gamers of late 2020s will lament the golden age of such classic RPGs as Skyrim, Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild.

Another thing to consider is how the Fallout-style RPGs were informed by the technological leap of late 90s. Their isometric point-and-click perspective was driven by Windows 95 mouse-based UI, while there text-heavy character, by there finally being enough memory to store and display all that text (but still not enough for a full show-don't-tell).

Quite possibly, the next evolutionary step - and next big RPG boom - will be driven by speech AI, as it will allow developers again to put unlimited amount of text in their games and have it voice-acted on the fly with AI-generated voices. Although quite possibly the results of that would look a lot closer to DE than to anything worthwhile.

 

[Ninjerk]

I haven't seen "Renaissance" used in the context of the 90s-2000s before.

 

[Daedalos]

Good games to come out, and people to stop being so fucking jaded and smug.

A lot of good games out there and still getting released. people want perfection, well, sure.

Also, lot of pirates. buy your shit if u want to get more games.

Just in the past 5 years, theres already been a slew of great crpgs. As great as the all time greats? maybe not, but still pretty fucking good.

good shit is on the way.. COLONY SHIP NEGGAS

 

[Tyranicon]

One thing to consider is that for old-school gamers of the 90s it wasn't Renaissance but steep decline dominated by Diablo-clones and popamole shooter wannabes. So if another Renaissance happened, the Codex would likely be the last place to acknowledge it. It might very well be that old-school gamers of late 2020s will lament the golden age of such classic RPGs as Skyrim, Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild.

Another thing to consider is how the Fallout-style RPGs were informed by the technological leap of late 90s. Their isometric point-and-click perspective was driven by Windows 95 mouse-based UI, while there text-heavy character, by there finally being enough memory to store and display all that text (but still not enough for a full show-don't-tell).

Quite possibly, the next evolutionary step - and next big RPG boom - will be driven by speech AI, as it will allow developers again to put unlimited amount of text in their games and have it voice-acted on the fly with AI-generated voices. Although quite possibly the results of that would look a lot closer to DE than to anything worthwhile.

Ah so this is something I can actually talk about since I play around with AI VOs. The technology isn't there yet, but I fully anticipate it being viable within the next 4-7 years. You can see an example of AI voice acting below (it's not great, but somewhat passable):

Spoiler

That being said, the much bigger evolutionary step when it comes to software tools, especially when it comes to cRPGs, is a rather underutilized (not really utilized by anybody really) idea: the AI DM.

Having an intelligent DM that can change story beats, introduce unpredictability, and react to a player's decisions is one of my ultimate goals as a dev. When was the last time you were actually ambushed? Or betrayed? Or had been the victim of a plot against you that isn't totally scripted?

Unfortunately, this kind of technology is not exactly something you can download off the unity store, and I'm stuck scripting it by hand.

 

[V_K]

That being said, the much bigger evolutionary step when it comes to software tools, especially when it comes to cRPGs, is a rather underutilized (not really utilized by anybody really) idea: the AI DM.

Having an intelligent DM that can change story beats, introduce unpredictability, and react to a player's decisions is one of my ultimate goals as a dev. When was the last time you were actually ambushed? Or betrayed? Or had been the victim of a plot against you that isn't totally scripted?

Unfortunately, this kind of technology is not exactly something you can download off the unity store, and I'm stuck scripting it by hand.