Where is innovation in new RPGs?

[luj1]

tl:dr:
-Innovative games need a singular creative vision

they need purity of vision, that is true

and centrally authored content by 1-2 educated leads

not 1000 voices like in todays studios where everyone has a say

 

[luj1]

What was last RPG that introduced something innovative?

Kenshi

Neo Scavenger

Brigand Oaxaca

 

[luj1]

Innovation in a genre where all everyone seems to want are more Baldur's Gate or Fallout clones.

the formula was perfected during the Rennaisance, but there is still room to innovate (see above)

especially within subsystems (which is what The Wall suggesting)

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Innovation is a neutral term. There could be good innovation or bad innovation.
That said, in the last decades there was a lot of innovation.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

The demand for high fidelity graphics

That doesnt explain why small indies are also unoriginal

Indies have to pick and chose what they work on lest the game never come out at all.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

"RPG"s without combat was an innovation. A very bad one.

 

[Ravielsk]

The decline in education, culture is breeding poor taste and poor standards

This is actually most evident when you examine what sort of premises old games used as opposed to modern ones. Even shitty FMV games put more thought into their basic premise then most AAA games do nowadays. Its absolutely staggering how uniform modern games are in their setting and premise. Just finding a game that does something... not even innovative just different narrative wise is an uphill struggle these days. Especially because most reviewers and reviews have absolutely no standards and will recommend abject trash as "good".

 

[jackofshadows]

Did you guys suddenly forget that games were being produced before mostly for nerds and now for general audience? So desperate to talk about social decline.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

 

[Ravielsk]

Did you guys suddenly forget that games were being produced before mostly for nerds and now for general audience? So desperate to talk about social decline.

This is perhaps one the biggest copes there is in the gaming sphere. Games were made by nerds and therefore they appealed to nerds but no one in 1994 sat down to make a game for some nebulous "nerd demographic". They always wanted the general audience they just were not concerned with the lowest of low denominators.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Did you guys suddenly forget that games were being produced before mostly for nerds and now for general audience? So desperate to talk about social decline.

This is perhaps one the biggest copes there is in the gaming sphere. Games were made by nerds and therefore they appealed to nerds but no one in 1994 sat down to make a game for some nebulous "nerd demographic". They always wanted the general audience they just were not concerned with the lowest of low denominators.

a lot of people on this site -- for whatever reason -- think the video game industry was tiny in the 90s

 

[Ravielsk]

a lot of people on this site -- for whatever reason -- think the video game industry was tiny in the 90s

I mean to be fair I cannot exactly blame them when most of modern media and executives pretend that games like Everquest, WoW or even the original DOOM were basically making chump change instead of the tens of millions.

Spoiler

Which at this point in the inflation cycle might be worth hundred of millions but I am too lazy to check that.

 

[jackofshadows]

Did you guys suddenly forget that games were being produced before mostly for nerds and now for general audience? So desperate to talk about social decline.

This is perhaps one the biggest copes there is in the gaming sphere. Games were made by nerds and therefore they appealed to nerds but no one in 1994 sat down to make a game for some nebulous "nerd demographic". They always wanted the general audience they just were not concerned with the lowest of low denominators.

Basically what I just said but with emphasis on the devs themselves. They've changed too yes but please don't tell me because of education systems on the west.

 

[Brancaleone]

Modern RPG developers have no vision. No one on the project is leading the team with a singular, creative vision. Pillars of Eternity famously went into development with no plot. Modern RPGs don't even have plots*, they have backstory. The characters are just infodump terminals, blathering about the world or their personal history.

From the outside, it looks as if most developers took the Lord of the Rings and decided that the real deal is the Middle Earth Encyclopedia in the Appendices, and whatever comes before them is next to irrelevant.

My feeling is that most games are planned not much as series, but as future franchises. That is, those resources that are not spent on graphics and marketing go into writing whatever derivative setting and its lore made of permutations and combination, under the supervision of a platoon of lawyers with the goal of patenting the IP and, if things work, have something that you can mechanically cobble actual videogames from with minimum effort/lowest level workforce, and ideally sell the franchise eventually (which mean there has to be room left for futher titles).

So you get no innovation from the setting, because if your priority is to cover all possible angles from a patent-law point of view, you don't go for quality, you just want to cover as much as possible.
You get no innovation in terms of plot, because all resources that don't go into graphics and marketing go into the setting, and the less plot there is in one title, the more room left for extracting more titles from the IP.
And no innovation in terms of mechanics, because they have to be as simplified and barebone as possible in order to appeal to the lowest denominator and don't cause frustration in ADHD disorder sufferers.

So where can innovation actually happen?

 

[The Wall]

Did you guys suddenly forget that games were being produced before mostly for nerds and now for general audience? So desperate to talk about social decline.

This is perhaps one the biggest copes there is in the gaming sphere. Games were made by nerds and therefore they appealed to nerds but no one in 1994 sat down to make a game for some nebulous "nerd demographic". They always wanted the general audience they just were not concerned with the lowest of low denominators.

Basically what I just said but with emphasis on the devs themselves. They've changed too yes but please don't tell me because of education systems on the west.

LOL LMAO MEGA LOL
Do you think games are made in societal vacuum? Seriously
People wanna kill you for watching problematic movie from 2010. Now go, be free artist and make whatever you want. Btw we won't fund it. May even ban it. Label you social parriah

Ahhh, the wonders of living in moral post-apocalypse

 

[jackofshadows]

LOL LMAO MEGA LOL
Do you think games are made in societal vacuum? Seriously
Almost all movies or video games from ancient past (90s, 2000s and early 2010s) would simply not be allowed today. Wouldn't exist

Wtf are you talking about? Or you mean solely mainstream? If so, why do you care so much about mainstream? I would bet on innovations there last anyway.

 

[The Wall]

Devs with pronouns in their bio are physically incapable of making good games. Why? It's simple, like everything in Universe. Either they are sick in head SJWs, laziness goes hand in hand with that or cucked normies, forbidden to make anything different from Current Approved Narrative. Making innovative good indie RPGs demands hard work. Impossible without it. Name me one hard working SJW. There are zero.Also demands team work. SJWs are backstabbing. Laziness prevents them from acquiring new knowledge (in programming, animation etc) or event wanting that. Even wanting to experiment. They want to clock those 8h and get paid. Even 8h is too much for them

All in all whoever thinks that current American and global societal climate doesn't impact entertainment is well...much less smart then he might think he is. Much much less smart. And he probably thinks he is oooooh sooooo smarty smart smart. Yet such simple concept as 'if you swim in sewers you wont smell nice" he has problems grasping

Let me guess, if we just ignore them, they'll go away. Right?

 

[The Wall]

LOL LMAO MEGA LOL
Do you think games are made in societal vacuum? Seriously
Almost all movies or video games from ancient past (90s, 2000s and early 2010s) would simply not be allowed today. Wouldn't exist

Wtf are you talking about? Or you mean solely mainstream? If so, why do you care so much about mainstream? I would bet on innovations there last anyway.

Indies live in society too
At this speed, by 2025 it will be illegal to make games without tranny as MC on Steam. I'm not even joking

 

[Ravielsk]

Basically what I just said but with emphasis on the devs themselves. They've changed too yes but please don't tell me because of education systems on the west.

Nah, the education system definitely carries a lions share of the blame here. Because you need to undestand that to be inspired by something you first need to know about it and understand it on some level. So if you are to be inspired by gothic architecture to make a gothic ghost hunter game set in the 15 century you first need to know what gothic architecture is, what makes it special and how is the 15 century different from the 21st century. But if the school either does not touch on those aspects or re-frames them as simply a "dark-racist period of religious idiocy" then how could anyone ever even consider taking inspiration from these things?

Same goes for programming mechanics. If you are taught math as a series of shortcuts(like I was) where the method is more important than the result then you are not teaching people to think logically but to simply seek and follow manuals. One is conducive to creative thinking and experimentation and the other is not, I'll let you figure which is which.

The school system and its products do have a profound effect on every level of society and to pretend that somehow video games are an exception to this is just naive.

 

[Ravielsk]

Devs with pronouns in their bio are physically incapable of making good games. Why?

I like to sell this particular point in a slightly nicer packaging. The core problem is that every work is ultimately just the reflection of the author making it. So if you are a well adjusted person with a degree in psychology your writing will reflect that on some level. However if you are a deluded midwit(or worse) who basically operates on the assumption that reality it self is subjective and just a matter of consensus then your work will simply suck 99% of the time because while your "subjective reality" might be somehow real enough for you that does not transfer to others. Because all media are ultimately objective and if your "subjective reality" does not line up with the reality of others your work will always be default suck.

 

[The Wall]

Nah, school systems which literally mold majority of children's minds during time period in human life when brain is like plastelin, can be molded into anything, have no impact on current or future Decline in video games. After all, 15-25 year olds are not target demographic for video games nor future developers. It's those 40+ people with surplus of free time and who'll live forever

 

[The Wall]

Devs with pronouns in their bio are physically incapable of making good games. Why?

I like to sell this particular point in a slightly nicer packaging. The core problem is that every work is ultimately just the reflection of the author making it. So if you are a well adjusted person with a degree in psychology your writing will reflect that on some level. However if you are a deluded midwit(or worse) who basically operates on the assumption that reality it self is subjective and just a matter of consensus then your work will simply suck 99% of the time because while your "subjective reality" might be somehow real enough for you that does not transfer to others. Because all media are ultimately objective and if your "subjective reality" does not line up with the reality of others your work will always be default suck.

Agreed. I'm just butthurt about midwits which impacts written delivery of my thoughts, though it shouldn't. I'm puzzled, more fascinated tbh, how can someone have 110+ IQ yet be unable to see that falling standards in math, literature and science teaching in schools will have profound impact on video games and every other facet of human output in society

 

[jackofshadows]

Indies live in society too
At this speed, by 2025 it will be illegal to make games without tranny as MC on Steam. I'm not even joking

I know that things are grim in that regard but you're being too dramatic imo. Take Factorio dev and not even himself but his audience as a bright example. And there will always be counter-culture, niche-culture, forbidden culture even.

The school system and its products do have a profound effect on every level of society and to pretend that somehow video games are an exception to this is just naive.

I'm not, Krishna forbid, argue otherwise but there's not like it's been super-effective education system for centuries and only now we somehow see a steady, hopeless decline everywhere. Besides, talented people will always find a way to educate xirselves. And person's growth continues for a long time. We wouldn't expect mature level of writing for instance from a just graduated student anyway.

 

[The Wall]

Zodiac Legion and Urban Strife, also next Battle Brothers Devs' game, all give much hope for XCOM like tactics/RPG. IronTower and Stygian Software along ATOM team are almost guaranteed Incline producers. Monomyth and Archaelund give me hope too

These are 8 examples of Indies with high potential to make quality and innovative games. All these Devs post on Codex. Coincidence? I think not

 

[Ravielsk]

I'm puzzled, more fascinated tbh, how can someone have 110+ IQ yet be unable to see that falling standards in math, literature and science teaching in schools will have profound impact on video games and every other facet of human output in society

Because IQ is ultimately measured within a tolerance of 15-20 points in both directions. So a 110 can be a 125 but also 90 and in my personal experience this is highly depends on what level are you engaging them. A world class financier might be on the level of 125 points when it comes to finance but turns into basic 90 point clown when it comes to social issues. So that is how you get otherwise highly capable people who also believe complete horseshit.

I'm not, Krishna forbid, argue otherwise but it's not like it's been super-effective education system for centuries and only now we somehow see a steady, hopeless decline everywhere.

Its not about how effective it is but what goals does it pursue. A education system that seeks to elevate people even if inefficient will have some success with that goal. However a system(which we currently have) that seeks to at best stagnate people and at worst actively make them dumber(like in my math example) even if its inefficient it will have some level of success with that goal. In any case the output of the system is cumulative and at some point it reaches a critical mass where its effects start to be more pronounced.

Besides, talented people will always find a way to educate xirselves.

Yes, but the problem is that when you set someone on the path of stupid at a young age its anyones guess how long if ever it will take for them to leave it. Besides this is again another cumulative effect where the reduced number of competent people in your immediate surrounding complicate the formation of a good enough team for game development. So while it does not set the chances for a competent person to emerge to 0 it reduces it enough for it to be a problem.