Decline Why 95% of the "modern" cRPG are so lame?

[adddeed]

20 years of drought, there is a high probability the last great devs didn't pass on their skills and no one can make it happen but a couple of guys feeding of roots in their garage.

Maybe stop chasing after everything that's new. The best can't be beaten:

Jagged Alliance 2 is objectively a fine game. But i didnt have fun with it.
Way too much micromanaging in fights. The game slows to a crawl once combat starts and it drags on forever. If you like gun porn and long gunfights with tons of mmicormanaging then its a great game.
But i enjoyed the managing/exploration aspect way more and wish the game was skewed toward that direction a little bit more.
So i dropped it half way through somewhere.

 

[Lilura]

Jagged Alliance 2 [...] i didnt have fun with it.
So i dropped it half way through somewhere.

Well, you have the Possibly Retarded tag for a reason.

Also, in the other thread, you typed Icewind Dale as IceWindDale. = Possibly Retarded +2

Then, you asked if you should play the original or EE version of IWD. = Possibly Retarded +3

And that's just your last TWO posts.

 

[karoliner]

Only 95%?

 

[adddeed]

Jagged Alliance 2 [...] i didnt have fun with it.
So i dropped it half way through somewhere.

Well, you have the Possibly Retarded tag for a reason.

Also, in the other thread, you typed Icewind Dale as IceWindDale. = Possibly Retarded +2

Then, you asked if you should play the original or EE version of IWD. = Possibly Retarded +3

And that's just your last TWO posts.

Thanks Sherlock.
Quite an analysis.

Im still right about Jagged Alliance 2 and you'e still a dumbfuck.
And why are you out of the kitchen?

 

[Raghar]

Actually I remember on something interesting. When BG3 was released, main developer of BG3 said he's surprised players shown someone who looked sensibly instead of using one of weird skin colors and million decorations. Basically, players did what I expected BG players do. They wanted to play decent game with sensible average story, and main character who would look like a parrot will not fit into the story.

That's actually quite sensible, and it's what a decent developer who knows previous BG games would expect. As a consequence to a story that would be decent and close to the ground, players would like something sensibly looking that would fit into the BG game like story more than bombastic stuff what they seen in the outro.

And that's the problem. Bombastic intro, average initial gameplay, game in the mid and the end ends with whimper.

 

[JarlFrank]

Actually I remember on something interesting. When BG3 was released, main developer of BG3 said he's surprised players shown someone who looked sensibly instead of using one of weird skin colors and million decorations. Basically, players did what I expected BG players do. They wanted to play decent game with sensible average story, and main character who would look like a parrot will not fit into the story.

That's actually quite sensible, and it's what a decent developer who knows previous BG games would expect. As a consequence to a story that would be decent and close to the ground, players would like something sensibly looking that would fit into the BG game like story more than bombastic stuff what they seen in the outro.

And that's the problem. Bombastic intro, average initial gameplay, game in the mid and the end ends with whimper.

It's like devs don't understand the basics of structure and pacing.

You start grounded and then slowly build up to an epic climax that gets foreshadowed along the way, so you have something to look forward to.

When you have exploding dragons in the intro, what's left to build up to?

 

[Takamori]

Actually I remember on something interesting. When BG3 was released, main developer of BG3 said he's surprised players shown someone who looked sensibly instead of using one of weird skin colors and million decorations. Basically, players did what I expected BG players do. They wanted to play decent game with sensible average story, and main character who would look like a parrot will not fit into the story.

That's actually quite sensible, and it's what a decent developer who knows previous BG games would expect. As a consequence to a story that would be decent and close to the ground, players would like something sensibly looking that would fit into the BG game like story more than bombastic stuff what they seen in the outro.

And that's the problem. Bombastic intro, average initial gameplay, game in the mid and the end ends with whimper.

It's like devs don't understand the basics of structure and pacing.

You start grounded and then slowly build up to an epic climax that gets foreshadowed along the way, so you have something to look forward to.

When you have exploding dragons in the intro, what's left to build up to?

And thats why we always end up with choosen one plot and the main character is running against time because HIGH STAKES. Instead of regular on ground stories.

 

[Lilura]

You start grounded and then slowly build up to an epic climax that gets foreshadowed along the way, so you have something to look forward to.

Says the guy who prefers BG2 to BG1...

 

[Apostle Hand]

rpgs were always bad
it just happens that new ones are more bad than before

 

[Sweeper]

Underrail, Pathfinder Kingmaker and even ATOM RPG to an extent, are all great CRPGs.
The Slavs will carry on the torch of the west, both in terms of RPG development, and other areas.
The decline in CRPG quality is synonymous with the decline of your civilization. Have fun with Jamal and Abdul westerners

 

[Scrounger]

So chance for an cRPG to succeed in failing would be 95%.
Kinda wish it could miss a few times in a row with that measly 5%...

However, things are much more complex but I think JarlFrank guy presented some credible theories. Also, small teams, passion, rich personal experience and knowledge are key words for me. Planning also.
Rigid placement of various elements into "boxes" and compartmentalization in general are one of the problems that dev teams face when they actually start working on some crpg game.

With that, no wonder that there's no wonder anymore. You know, like actual magic of exploring worlds and ideas.
Instead it usually boils to cold cuts of gameplay loops and elements coated in miasma of mediocrity...

 

[Semiurge]

Because developers have learned, like all other content creators, that the masses are so stupid and starved for distractions that they will happily gobble up anything. Why should the devs then bother with ambition?

 

[TemplarGR]

Underrail, Pathfinder Kingmaker and even ATOM RPG to an extent, are all great CRPGs.
The Slavs will carry on the torch of the west, both in terms of RPG development, and other areas.
The decline in CRPG quality is synonymous with the decline of your civilization. Have fun with Jamal and Abdul westerners

Yeah, this is what a slavic SHILL would say here.... Codex is OVERRUN with slavs shilling for their shovelware. All 3 "games" you mentioned are GARBAGE and no sane person enjoys them.

 

[Twiglard]

Underrail, Pathfinder Kingmaker and even ATOM RPG to an extent, are all great CRPGs.
The Slavs will carry on the torch of the west, both in terms of RPG development, and other areas.
The decline in CRPG quality is synonymous with the decline of your civilization. Have fun with Jamal and Abdul westerners

Yeah, this is what a slavic SHILL would say here.... Codex is OVERRUN with slavs shilling for their shovelware. All 3 "games" you mentioned are GARBAGE and no sane person enjoys them.

Can't you have more of your lucid moments? They're too few and far between.

 

[Ol' Willy]

- something appears, niche at first
- it starts making moderate profits, but even moderate profits are still profits
- suits notice the thing and it's product potential
- suits enter the market having no understanding (nor the wish to have it) of initial thing but tons of resources
- suits bring it to the lowest common denominator, so even a trained monkey can enjoy it, but leave just the superficial components of original
- ???
- decline

 

[Sweeper]

Yeah, this is what a slavic SHILL would say here.... Codex is OVERRUN with slavs shilling for their shovelware. All 3 "games" you mentioned are GARBAGE and no sane person enjoys them.

Your transgression against the Slavic peoples has been noted Demetrios.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The Kickstarter narrative of recreating the classics and reviving the genre probably doesn’t help. If anything, it leads devs to question their original ideas in light of what they think fans expect. It’s not a good mindset for creativity and innovation.

When we think of the classics, like the games Lilura always mentions, they were all facing forward, not retreading old ground.

Jagged Alliance 2 wasn’t trying to revive the spirit of JA1, it aimed to top it and be better in every way.

In the 'CRPG Wasteland' era lasting from 2003-2011, only a handful of CRPGs worth playing were released, while the high-budget productions claiming to be RPGs gradually simplified and streamlined gameplay to such an extent that they arguably no longer belonged to the genre. The release of Legend of Grimrock in 2012 marked a profound shift in CRPGs, with the arrival of niche developers who created Incline by looking backward to classic CRPGs in order push the genre forward. Though, to be sure, they remained a distinct minority in the genre.

Legend of Grimrock (2012)
Paper Sorceror (2013)
Legend of Grimrock II (2014)
Underrail (2015)
Age of Decadence (2015)
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (2012/2013/2016)
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (2016)
Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar (2017)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance (2018)
Kenshi (2018)
And various others

 

[Scrounger]

Because developers have learned, like all other content creators, that the masses are so stupid and starved for distractions that they will happily gobble up anything. Why should the devs then bother with ambition?

Ambition for success? Yeah, ambition fails often in those cases. It all again creeps out as an passion project whether it succeed or not.
Masses are indeed uninterested or more precisely passive but that was always a case.
Now more so then before but if you are a creator, you're better with preserving your own inspiration.
Following a scene and watching what people think they like or what they feel what's cool or not is interesting but it's better for a dev to keep his head and ideas fresh. Even this forum can sometimes feel oppressive in terms of expectation if you try to read too much into peoples wishes.
Nice things comes (unfortunately or fortunately) unexpectedly, like a 5% missed bang! And that's if creators preserve their passion (or sanity) and succeed with releasing a finished thing despite the general lack of interest...

Now, this is maybe little stupid of me to say, but I actually believe that there will be some little emeralds of a crpg games in a future, maybe even some genre hybrids. Not much, just some small peak of creative insanity in a way..

 

[Devastator]

I remember watching a postmortem on Fallout development on YouTube (I think it was by Tim Cain at GDC). The presentation explained how Fallout was not even supposed to be a real project, that it was developed as a side thing for a good while. Basically, they would get people to work on Fallout for free after they were done with their other tasks.
So, if even in 1994 they assumed that Fallout would never get approved officially and they tried to get it started unofficially ==> How can we expect major studios to start developing non-lame stuff in the shit period of today?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

because you're not 14 anymore

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

The guy I met who worked at Crytek worked as narrative designer there and what he did was mostly coordinating the team and making sure all the different writers were on the same page. The way they worked was that the exact same character would have a dozen writers who'd all just write and handful of lines for that character. Each cutscene would be written by a different guy. Nobody in the team could point to one specific character, one specific mission, one specific event etc and say "I made that", the writers and level designers there only made small parts of everything. In the end you'd have one character whose lines were written by 10 different writers and stitched together by the project manager.

And this is by design. This ensures that no strong, independent artists emerge. This leads to not having any people at the company who can't be replaced, so all power stays within management. Any dissent can be dealt by sacking people who oppose 1%. If there were workers who couldn't be replaced they could spearhead a strike.

Neoliberal world may tell you how all you need to succeed is to work hard, but in reality people at the top know very well that it's them who hold all the cards and all the talk about hard working is just a mirage.

 

[samuraigaiden]

The Kickstarter narrative of recreating the classics and reviving the genre probably doesn’t help. If anything, it leads devs to question their original ideas in light of what they think fans expect. It’s not a good mindset for creativity and innovation.

When we think of the classics, like the games Lilura always mentions, they were all facing forward, not retreading old ground.

Jagged Alliance 2 wasn’t trying to revive the spirit of JA1, it aimed to top it and be better in every way.

In the 'CRPG Wasteland' era lasting from 2003-2011, only a handful of CRPGs worth playing were released, while the high-budget productions claiming to be RPGs gradually simplified and streamlined gameplay to such an extent that they arguably no longer belonged to the genre. The release of Legend of Grimrock in 2012 marked a profound shift in CRPGs, with the arrival of niche developers who created Incline by looking backward to classic CRPGs in order push the genre forward. Though, to be sure, they remained a distinct minority in the genre.

Legend of Grimrock (2012)
Paper Sorceror (2013)
Legend of Grimrock II (2014)
Underrail (2015)
Age of Decadence (2015)
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (2012/2013/2016)
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (2016)
Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar (2017)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance (2018)
Kenshi (2018)
And various others

I'm not saying the CRPG Renaissance via Kickstarter was a bad thing. At all. It was a very, very good thing.

But in the context of discussing a dissatisfaction with contemporary CRPGs and this feeling they are lacking something when compared to the classics, one must wonder if this sentiment of revival doesn't at some point limit the creativity of developers.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the reason no strong, independent artists emerge is because the industry hires a bunch of women who spent 6 years at an overpriced art school and failed to learn to draw basic anatomy
I'm not against hiring all women, just about 98% of them.

 

[Lilura]

In the 'CRPG Wasteland' era lasting from 2003-2011, only a handful of CRPGs worth playing were released, while the high-budget productions claiming to be RPGs gradually simplified and streamlined gameplay to such an extent that they arguably no longer belonged to the genre. The release of Legend of Grimrock in 2012 marked a profound shift in CRPGs, with the arrival of niche developers who created Incline by looking backward to classic CRPGs in order push the genre forward. Though, to be sure, they remained a distinct minority in the genre.

Legend of Grimrock (2012)
Paper Sorceror (2013)
Legend of Grimrock II (2014)
Underrail (2015)
Age of Decadence (2015)
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (2012/2013/2016)
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (2016)
Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar (2017)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance (2018)
Kenshi (2018)
And various others

Nice propaganda. With the notable exception of AoD (and Dungeon Rats, which you fail to mention), your list contains naught but trash.

Now let's take a look at your so-called "Wasteland era" of 2003-2011:

Temple of Elemental Evil
Silent Storm
Hammer & Sickle
Mask of the Betrayer
Storm of Zehir
Fallout: New Vegas
Alpha Protocol
The Witcher 1
Mount & Blade: Warband
Knights of the Chalice
Gothic 2 (and NotR)
Dragon Age: Origins
Hordes of the Underdark
Shadows of Undrentide
KotOR
KotOR II
Vampire Bloodlines

So even with the epic decline of Oblivion, Oblivion With Guns and Ass Effect, an all-but-dead genre still exceeded your Kickstarter faggotry. Of course, 2003-2011 cuts a poor figure against Core Renaissance (1996-2002), but I'd take ToEE over every single game in your list put together.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

if you dislike mass effect you cannot be my friend