Decline Why did the crpg decline happen?

[NecroLord]

PC Master Race for all eternity.

 

[Lemming42]

From what i've read about this and other threads, why is linear level design a bad thing? Genuine question.

It's a good thing in some genres like FPS and certain types of platformer, but it's usually the wrong move in cRPGs. If you've built a character or party with a specific skillset, the last thing you want is to be funnelled through a very inflexible experience, especially one that might not match the strengths of your build(s).

 

[almondblight]

Microsoft didn't buy Bungie before Halo 1 you idiot.

Ah, so you're just making things up. Good to know.

Halo was announced on July 21st, 1999 at Macworld.

Microsoft bought Bungie almost a year later, June 2000.

Halo was released over a year later on November 21, 2001.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

The genre is oversaturated with cookie cutter medieval fantasy where you're the chosen one who has to save the universe, when there are a plethora of other genres and premises that could be explored. If you've played the classic Bioware, Black Isle, Troika and Obsidian crpgs, then you've pretty much played the entire medium. Crpgs in other genres are rare and tend to suffer from imitating popular entries in the genre rather than trying to do their own thing.

 

[Tyranicon]

All media goes through a golden age and then subsequent periods of decline. The reasons for these are all the same: when the medium is new you had passionate hobbyists and talented pioneers, people who cared about the medium itself. As it matures, it becomes just another way to milk money out of the populace and to perform social engineering.

 

[Gregz]

Computer gaming stopping being a hobby for nerds, by nerds.

In other words, when Windows 95 came around and allowed retards to use computers.

Agreed.

Consolization and mainstream acceptance of this hobby was the hug of death. 'Gaming' is now just another medium for brainwashing normies.

 

[mondblut]

The genre is oversaturated with cookie cutter medieval fantasy where you're the chosen one who has to save the universe, when there are a plethora of other genres and premises that could be explored. If you've played the classic Bioware, Black Isle, Troika and Obsidian crpgs, then you've pretty much played the entire medium. Crpgs in other genres are rare and tend to suffer from imitating popular entries in the genre rather than trying to do their own thing.

Yeah, if only we had more RPGs about saturnian squids riding dick dinosaurs in industrial age Mezobabylonian ice jungles, that would make RPGs great again overnight

 

[NecroLord]

The genre is oversaturated with cookie cutter medieval fantasy where you're the chosen one who has to save the universe, when there are a plethora of other genres and premises that could be explored. If you've played the classic Bioware, Black Isle, Troika and Obsidian crpgs, then you've pretty much played the entire medium. Crpgs in other genres are rare and tend to suffer from imitating popular entries in the genre rather than trying to do their own thing.

You can make good medieval fantasy, but enough with the bloody dragons and hills and plains...
You can mix things up, add different creatures, planes of existence, more geographical variety.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Yeah, if only we had more RPGs about saturnian squids riding dick dinosaurs in industrial age Mezobabylonian ice jungles, that would make RPGs great again overnight

I never said that. That's a nonsensical strawman.

You can make good medieval fantasy, but enough with the bloody dragons and hills and plains...
You can mix things up, add different creatures, planes of existence, more geographical variety.

Maybe, but at the end of day that's just a cosmetic palette swap. If you took a generic rpg and then set it on the elemental plane of fire (specifically the Mystara/Dark Dungeons version that has actual geography), then it's just a generic rpg set on the elemental plane of fire. You go around killing fire rats in the basements of ifrit peasant farmers, fight evil ifrit overlords trying to enslave the populace with whatever the plane's equivalent of orcs is, etc.

I'm specifically sick of the "medieval fantasy" part. I'm sick of all the tropes associated with it. The genre is oversaturated and mined out. After a while the games just blur together.

All media goes through a golden age and then subsequent periods of decline. The reasons for these are all the same: when the medium is new you had passionate hobbyists and talented pioneers, people who cared about the medium itself. As it matures, it becomes just another way to milk money out of the populace and to perform social engineering.

And here we have the root of the problems. The reason why rpgs are so cookie cutter and bland is symptomatic of a lack of creativity and passion on the part of the developers.

 

[ShiningSoldier]

The genre is oversaturated with cookie cutter medieval fantasy where you're the chosen one who has to save the universe, when there are a plethora of other genres and premises that could be explored. If you've played the classic Bioware, Black Isle, Troika and Obsidian crpgs, then you've pretty much played the entire medium. Crpgs in other genres are rare and tend to suffer from imitating popular entries in the genre rather than trying to do their own thing.

Yeah, if only we had more RPGs about saturnian squids riding dick dinosaurs in industrial age Mezobabylonian ice jungles, that would make RPGs great again overnight

It was the most exact description of Morrowind I've ever heard.

 

[NecroLord]

Yeah, if only we had more RPGs about saturnian squids riding dick dinosaurs in industrial age Mezobabylonian ice jungles, that would make RPGs great again overnight

I never said that. That's a nonsensical strawman.

You can make good medieval fantasy, but enough with the bloody dragons and hills and plains...
You can mix things up, add different creatures, planes of existence, more geographical variety.

Maybe, but at the end of day that's just a cosmetic palette swap. If you took a generic rpg and then set it on the elemental plane of fire (specifically the Mystara/Dark Dungeons version that has actual geography), then it's just a generic rpg set on the elemental plane of fire. You go around killing fire rats in the basements of ifrit peasant farmers, fight evil ifrit overlords trying to enslave the populace with whatever the plane's equivalent of orcs is, etc.

I'm specifically sick of the "medieval fantasy" part. I'm sick of all the tropes associated with it. The genre is oversaturated and mined out. After a while the games just blur together.

All media goes through a golden age and then subsequent periods of decline. The reasons for these are all the same: when the medium is new you had passionate hobbyists and talented pioneers, people who cared about the medium itself. As it matures, it becomes just another way to milk money out of the populace and to perform social engineering.

And here we have the root of the problems. The reason why rpgs are so cookie cutter and bland is symptomatic of a lack of creativity and passion on the part of the developers.

In my dark fantasy medieval RPG, I would remove all demihuman races. Fuck elves, gnomes, orcs, all of them gotta go...
Also no dragons and other typical fantasy monsters.
Focus more on noble human activities like plotting, scheming, raping, pillaging, war, but also chivalry and courage displayed by certain rare heroes.
Add more undead, demons and abominations. Magic is rare and dangerous to wield, also hereditary, transmitted through bloodline.
Hot chicks and barbarians are also mandatory.

 

[Hell Swarm]

From what i've read about this and other threads, why is linear level design a bad thing? Genuine question.

Because some dumbfuck high on his farts doesn't get to decide where my character/party wants to go and what to do. Gimme a world and systems to play with, then kindly fuck off.

Every game you ever play has been designed and implemented by a dumbfuck high on his farts. You are within the bounds of someone else's creation and you are doing what they want even if you don't think you are.

Microsoft didn't buy Bungie before Halo 1 you idiot.

Ah, so you're just making things up. Good to know.

Halo was announced on July 21st, 1999 at Macworld.

Microsoft bought Bungie almost a year later, June 2000.

Halo was released over a year later on November 21, 2001.

Halo was in development since 1997. When it was shown at Mac world it was a third person shooter struggling with a physics engine for it's vehicles. Microsoft didn't buy Bungie before Halo CE. They bought it during the tail end of production when all the major changes from open world to more linear gameplay was already in place.

 

[Gahbreeil]

Let us rejoice at the wind of tomorrow and await the arrival of Avowed.

 

[gurugeorge]

Disregardiing BG3's alphabet stuff and multiracial bollocks, it remains a pretty good CRPG, mainly on account of its reactivity (or quasi-immersive-simminess). Time and again I've seen people on YT playing the game and delighting in trying things out and finding the world has seemingly been "prepped" for just that particular whacky idea. It's what Larian are proud of and good at, but it should be a feature of every CRPG.

We're used here to complaining about a) dumbing down and b) pandering away from us nerds to towards the romance weirdos, etc., but the way I see it, while both those complaints have merit, on the other side of it, the success of BG3 shows that attention to detail in the meat and potatoes of the CRPGey-ness of a game does attract normies. The sticking point is the same as with many games and the barrier to entry to normies: as nerds we got used to "game logic," and particular kinds and styles of abstraction of reality; but what the normie expects is a game world that reacts in much the same way as the real world would react (but with magic).

And always, the closer the CRPG is to that ideal, that will make it a hit with the non-contemptible normie.

Again, this goes back to my hobbyhorse that CRPGs are basically adventure simulations, with each phase of the development of CRPGs being marked by failure to attain perfect simulation (due to context, lack of technology, lack of resources, money, etc.) With a perfect simulation you wouldn't even need a "story" as such because you'd create your own story just as you do in the real world.

That said, there will always be a certain charm in the abstractions developers fell back on due to their failure to make perfect simulations. Every phase of development leaves behind its little treasures that can be enjoyed for their own sake.

 

[Ryzer]

With Bioware, when Baldur's Gate 1 released. Literally everything you complain about modern RPGs can be linked to Bioware: Real Time combat, romances, simplified character creation, cliché classic heroic fantasy story.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

With Bioware, when Baldur's Gate 1 released. Literally everything you complain about modern RPGs can be linked to Bioware: Real Time combat, romances, simplified character creation, cliché classic heroic fantasy story.

It was also a huge step down from the reactivity of Fallout.

 

[Fedora Master]

The reasons for these are all the same

Jews

 

[Fedora Master]

With Bioware, when Baldur's Gate 1 released. Literally everything you complain about modern RPGs can be linked to Bioware: Real Time combat, romances, simplified character creation, cliché classic heroic fantasy story.

The problem isn't that Bioware made these things popular, the problem is that Bioware and almost every other developer after them failed to iterate. They accidentally created a "standard" that nobody feels like deviating from.

Underrail has none of these cookie-cutter features.

 

[The Nameless One]

With Bioware, when Baldur's Gate 1 released. Literally everything you complain about modern RPGs can be linked to Bioware: Real Time combat, romances, simplified character creation, cliché classic heroic fantasy story.

No, it's clearly the creation of Windows PCs the main issue. If we all stuck to Apple IIs and Commodore64s, we'd all be happily playing Wasteland 1 and Oregon Trail by now instead of them weak games from the late '90s.

 

[Beastro]

I'm pretty PC master race myself. That being said do people not remember the NES/SMS being way better than most 80s computers? Or the snes/genesis being better than most late 80s early 90s pcs?
Compare an NES to a C64, or zx

*which did get a console port!

A pretty good one. Single handedly made the game almost into horror game with how lonely and isolated it made you feel.



They ported many Gold Box games too. Buck Rogers was improved graphically and had a similar scary air to it, but the complexity was reduced. Removal of ammo made a huge impact on combat and what you used.

 

[Beastro]

Diablo, Final Fantasy VII, Baldur's Gate and Oblivion ruined everything.

Also the industrial revolution.

Wtf did Diablo 1 ruin? I could see an argument for D2 maybe but D1 is harmless.

Plenty of RPGs had to turn into isometric real-time games with tons of loot so they could compete with Diablo and its clones. Not even D&D games were safe, just look at Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights.

That's a stretch. I'm a firm believer that decline always originates from homosexuality so we must look at the earliest RPGs that were developed by homosexuals and contain homosexual content aka grooming. It seems that RPGs became increasingly more gay after Fallout 1. We can start there.

Diablo 1 ftr had zero homosexual subtext.

Humanity has risen! has a buddy, I see.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

The genre is oversaturated with cookie cutter medieval fantasy where you're the chosen one who has to save the universe, when there are a plethora of other genres and premises that could be explored. If you've played the classic Bioware, Black Isle, Troika and Obsidian crpgs, then you've pretty much played the entire medium. Crpgs in other genres are rare and tend to suffer from imitating popular entries in the genre rather than trying to do their own thing.

Ok why aren't you buying non cookie cutter medieval fantasy games then.

Truth is that's what people want in the genre.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

The genre is oversaturated with cookie cutter medieval fantasy where you're the chosen one who has to save the universe, when there are a plethora of other genres and premises that could be explored. If you've played the classic Bioware, Black Isle, Troika and Obsidian crpgs, then you've pretty much played the entire medium. Crpgs in other genres are rare and tend to suffer from imitating popular entries in the genre rather than trying to do their own thing.

Yeah, if only we had more RPGs about saturnian squids riding dick dinosaurs in industrial age Mezobabylonian ice jungles, that would make RPGs great again overnight

To be fair: CRPGs are the only genre left standing in which a game set in the zombie apocalypse or WWII would be seen as a "radical" idea. Like: "Woah, how did they come up with THIS?"

It's been two decades since even the last major Horror-ish game, ffs.

 

[mondblut]

To be fair: CRPGs are the only genre left standing in which a game set in the zombie apocalypse or WWII would be seen as a "radical" idea. Like: "Woah, how did they come up with THIS?"

Proper CRPGs are computer implementations of D&D and derivative games, and D&D and derivative games are explicitly designed around mythic champions and puissant wizards (or their equivalents in spaaahce) doing larger than life things (like not dying in the first encounter). A WW2 CRPG where you shrug off a MG 42 burst in your face at point blank range then proceed to bayonet a Tiger II to death would be kind of retarded. And anything else would be a far cry from D&D and derivative games.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

To be fair: CRPGs are the only genre left standing in which a game set in the zombie apocalypse or WWII would be seen as a "radical" idea. Like: "Woah, how did they come up with THIS?"

Proper CRPGs are computer implementations of D&D and derivative games, and D&D and derivative games are explicitly designed around mythic champions and puissant wizards (or their equivalents in spaaahce) doing larger than life things (like not dying in the first encounter). A WW2 CRPG where you shrug off a MG 42 burst in your face at point blank range then proceed to bayonet a Tiger II to death would be kind of retarded. And anything else would be a far cry from D&D and derivative games.

How about one that casts you as counter intelligence, saboteur, mixed intelligence, has you engaging into sabotage, organized crime, resistance organization, whathaveyou? This seems the same kind of excuse made for there being so few horror-themed games. "Horror and CRPG mechanics don't mesh!" They do. They did. Some of them even tweaked the typical mechanics, such as Stone Prophet introducing (light) survival elements into exploration. Or Stygian toying with sanity mechanics action games such as Call Of Cthulhu have been trying to play with since forever.

It's a miracle games such as Alpha Protocol even made it past the pitching stage (ditto Aliens: Crucible, which only later got canned).