Why do modern RPGs have 0% soul?

[3 others]

My guess is that smaller workforces allowed individual personalities to seep through and also that the looser, more chaotic work environments they had back then led to greater degrees of spontaneity and, indeed, silliness. A lot of what gives games like Fallout 1/2 and BG1 so much heart or charm are the dumb little jokes perforating them. Other possible causes are that SF/F video games have gotten a lot of mileage from rehashing ideas and aesthetics found in literary and cinematic precursors and that those sources have been mined out, that modern-day media in general is overly centralized and risk-averse, and that the modern age is in some senses inimical to the art of storytelling, such as through its extreme levels of mind-killing tribalism or the dehumanizing effects of neoliberalism and how it's possibly killed the heroic journey as a relevant metaphor for life.

I just listened to an interview by the Paradise Killer devs. The game was developed as a passion project by two industry veterans (I forget where they were employed), and they raised a similar point: Because the core development team was just two people, they could first of all create a very 'out there' gameworld filled with odd lore and characters, but also make drastic changes in the game systems and especially the exponentially growing dialog matrix very late in the development as they discovered bugs and things that just didn't work properly. The designer explicitly says that "There's no way you could do this with a bigger team because it requires one person to have all of this in his head and have the ability to very quickly do [whatever needs to be done]".

 

[Tyranicon]

The designer explicitly says that "There's no way you could do this with a bigger team because it requires one person to have all of this in his head and have the ability to very quickly do [whatever needs to be done]".

The greatest art will never be a collaboration. It will always be one singular vision.

Instead, too many zoomers seem to be dumb as bricks.

Zoomers are basically children who have been spoonfed mediocrity their entire lives. The unfortunate part is when they start carrying their tastes into adulthood.

 

[Gregz]

mind-killing tribalism or the dehumanizing effects of neoliberalism

That's all it is. No more, no less.

 

[fantadomat]

Back in the day you usually had young dudes taking a shot at making games, willing to take risks. Those guys grew up, oftentimes started their own studios, stopped playing games, and absolutely refuse to take risks because now they're betting their retirement funds and mortgages and what not. I know cases like that personally – people who determine the game's design, despite not having played a game (outside maybe some AAA slop) in 10+ years, believing themselves to be hot shit since they made a hit 20+ years ago. And I see young people with tons of great ideas in the industry too, only rather than making their dream game from a garage somewhere, they go work into studios to gain experience (and money). Then they buy a house, start a family, have kids, find they have no time for playing games... and the situation repeats.

You can't be a good game developer if you don't play games, it's that simple – you'll get professionally stunted, not encounter new ideas, and forget the old ones, until you just start copying mainstream shit.

Also well read,had good amount of cultural knowledge from older generation. Good example is the dnd and how much mythology,history and occult shit there is it. Warhammer is the same,fantasy one is just medieval earth but instead of nations you have different races with some mythology sprinkled in.

From me point of view the whole of society is in steep decline and the entertaining industry is a reflection of it. And society is in decline because humans are in it. When you don't have quality people to take leading role you end up with retards and overcompensating self hating midwits.

I do think that tech have a big role in it,phones have made people retards,same as google and wiki. Tho i do think that the outer realms have a finger in the whole thing.

 

[fantadomat]

mind-killing tribalism or the dehumanizing effects of neoliberalism

That's all it is. No more, no less.

It is the classical liberalism that fucked up everything. When you degrade human societies to worthless individuals you end up with lonely people that go insane with time and end up hating things that made them lonely and individuals thus ending up creating their insane cult tribe. It is better to be part of a insane satanic death cult than be a fucking individual. I may not agree with the values of the woke cult,but i do understand them. A bunch of young people that got betrayed by rotten older generation of greedy parasites. It is no wonder that they are filled with that much hate and want to burn everything to the ground.

 

[behold_a_man]

When you degrade human societies to worthless individuals you end up with lonely people

Why worthless? Who defines their value? fantadomat?

A bunch of young people that got betrayed by rotten older generation of greedy parasites.

Maybe they were not greedy enough? Having a parasite makes a person anything but lonely, I believe.

It is no wonder that they are filled with that much hate and want to burn everything to the ground.

If they are thinking in terms of abstractions out of touch with reality, then yes, sure.

Also, to quote a well-known Polish entertainer, "The intelligence of a collective body is roughly equal to the IQ of the brightest individual in the group divided by a cube root of the number of its members". Of course, the best RPGs, or the best projects or ideas in general, tend to be products of a singular, monolithic vision.

 

[Vic]

Of course, the best RPGs, or the best projects or ideas in general, tend to be products of a singular, monolithic vision.

yes it's almost always individual talent, too many cooks and all

but, a game has multiple dimensions to it, you have writing, art, game design, music, etc. And each of those elements should follow the vision of the lead and compliment the other elements of the game.

with "soulless" games stuff gets outsourced, revised, handed over to interns etc. and that vision gets lost, if it was ever present in the first place

 

[fantadomat]

Of course, the best RPGs, or the best projects or ideas in general, tend to be products of a singular, monolithic vision.

yes it's almost always individual talent, too many cooks and all

but, a game has multiple dimensions to it, you have writing, art, game design, music, etc. And each of those elements should follow the vision of the lead and compliment the other elements of the game.

with "soulless" games stuff gets outsourced, revised, handed over to interns etc. and that vision gets lost, if it was ever present in the first place

Which is exactly what it means to have a collective. You need a single person with a great vision and a lot of people to build it. That is why individualism is poison and it should be exterminated from humanity.

The whole idea of collectivism vs individualism is peak idiocy. You could be an individual in a collective,there is no conflict to be had. People that screech about individualism tend to be some mutants,pedophiles or some other parasitic vermin. Also you can't have a successful individual unless you have a good society to live in,which is build by a collective.

 

[luj1]

Why with more money, more manpower, 10x better technology and 10x more time, modern Game Devs can't make anything worth remembering

Because big budgets and large teams actually make the games worse. Mnogo baba, kilava deca.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Anyone remember Faerie Tale for the Amiga?

A personal History

 

[vitellus]

Why with more money, more manpower, 10x better technology and 10x more time, modern Game Devs can't make anything worth remembering

Because big budgets and large teams actually make the games worse. Mnogo baba, kilava deca.

strong leadership with experience, the ability to manage people, and a good understanding of time management makes all the difference in large teams.

not giving leadership positions to nepotistic mealymouthed milquetoasts is also advised.

too many chiefs and not enough injuns and what-have-you

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Why with more money, more manpower, 10x better technology and 10x more time, modern Game Devs can't make anything worth remembering

Because big budgets and large teams actually make the games worse. Mnogo baba, kilava deca.

strong leadership with experience, the ability to manage people, and a good understanding of time management makes all the difference in large teams.

not giving leadership positions to nepotistic mealymouthed milquetoasts is also advised.

too many chiefs and not enough injuns and what-have-you

Maybe they wanted more wampum.

 

[Lord_Potato]

but, a game has multiple dimensions to it, you have writing, art, game design, music, etc. And each of those elements should follow the vision of the lead and compliment the other elements of the game.

with "soulless" games stuff gets outsourced, revised, handed over to interns etc. and that vision gets lost, if it was ever present in the first place

And then you get Starfield

 

[Jrpgfan]

Anyone remember Faerie Tale for the Amiga?

A personal History

Is that Ryan Reynolds with a wig?

 

[Vic]

but, a game has multiple dimensions to it, you have writing, art, game design, music, etc. And each of those elements should follow the vision of the lead and compliment the other elements of the game.

with "soulless" games stuff gets outsourced, revised, handed over to interns etc. and that vision gets lost, if it was ever present in the first place

And then you get Starfield

yeah, sadly.

 

[Butter]

Anyone remember Faerie Tale for the Amiga?

A personal History

Is that Ryan Reynolds with a wig?

Sneak peek at the new Neil Breen movie.

 

[Iucounu]

It is better to be part of a insane satanic death cult than be a fucking individual.

Leaders are individuals, even in insane death cults...

 

[fantadomat]

It is better to be part of a insane satanic death cult than be a fucking individual.

Leaders are individuals, even in insane death cults...

Ohhhh geeee,didn't know that you were a hivemind lol. Everyone is a fucking individual,also everyone is part of a collective. Individualism and individual are two very different things. Individualism is like capitalism,a cancerous ideology based around certain negative aspect of humans,it is part of the enlightenment sect.

 

[Sibelius]

Of course, the best RPGs, or the best projects or ideas in general, tend to be products of a singular, monolithic vision.

with "soulless" games stuff gets outsourced, revised, handed over to interns etc. and that vision gets lost, if it was ever present in the first place

Like Starfield?

 

[Vic]

Of course, the best RPGs, or the best projects or ideas in general, tend to be products of a singular, monolithic vision.

with "soulless" games stuff gets outsourced, revised, handed over to interns etc. and that vision gets lost, if it was ever present in the first place

Like Starfield?

yes but also no

 

[RaggleFraggle]

The greatest art will never be a collaboration. It will always be one singular vision.

This is why I wish we had Prey-style skill implants. Having all the skills necessary to bring a creative vision to life, much less succeed, are intense and time-consuming for just one person to develop. That immediately raises a very high barrier to entry. While lowering the barrier to entry does increase the amount of crap and disappointment you have to sift through, it still does increase the number of gems.

For the longest time I thought we'd never get a Metamorphosis Alpha crpg. Now there's Colony Ship and Hibernaculum. They're not identical to MA, but it's still an absurd coincidence that there's now two crpgs about living inside a cyberpunk colony ship infested with monsters and killer robots that take wildly different approaches to gameplay.

I don't trust AI to compensate for a creative director's flaws.

Tangent about how relying on AI will result in our descendants evolving into parasitic brainless bags of organs and gonads

You don't know what you don't know, and the less you know the more likely you are to think you're an expert. As shown by all the AI bros who don't know anything about basic composition, architecture, texture, etc who think being able to type a paragraph of imagery into a prompt window and select the superficially best output makes them artists. AI is never going to substitute for drawing/modeling software because the sheer volume of text you'd need to be able to handpick every pixel and 3D coordinate is prohibitive. If you actually care about fine details, then it's easier to draw/place things by hand. If you're lazy and take no pride in the craft, then I guess AI is "good enough." That thought process leads nowhere good.

Let's be honest: the end goal of AI is to create a class of beings with human-level or greater intellect that it is morally acceptable to enslave. Rather than put in the work to achieve absolutely anything ourselves, we'd rather invent slaves with such loyalty that we can trust them to do our thinking for us. At that point, we're fucked. You know what happens when a species finds a niche where it can simply rely on another species to replace its own organ systems? It evolves into a parasite. Once humans create AGI that isn't directly augmenting our own brains, we've initiated the process of evolving into parasites. This is what will happen to us.

 

[vitellus]

Rather than put in the work to achieve absolutely anything ourselves, we'd rather invent slaves with such loyalty that we can trust them to do our thinking for us. At that point, we're fucked.

i have a solution for one of those inevitable paths!

 

[Sibelius]

Of course, the best RPGs, or the best projects or ideas in general, tend to be products of a singular, monolithic vision.

I agree with this whole heartedly. One thing that I just don't get about modern TV shows in particular is the concept of a writers room, it just seems to result in messy stories (or Family Guy manatee story boarding). Taking it a step further you have several major shows where there are different writers and directors working on different episodes. Works for shows that are compendiums of stories, early Black Mirror for example, but when there needs to be continuity of lore and tone it just doesn't work.

 

[Butter]

Of course, the best RPGs, or the best projects or ideas in general, tend to be products of a singular, monolithic vision.

I agree with this whole heartedly. One thing that I just don't get about modern TV shows in particular is the concept of a writers room, it just seems to result in messy stories (or Family Guy manatee story boarding). Taking it a step further you have several major shows where there are different writers and directors working on different episodes. Works for shows that are compendiums of stories, early Black Mirror for example, but when there needs to be continuity of lore and tone it just doesn't work.

What's the alternative when you have to write 22 40-minute episodes each season? The showrunner is supposed to do a pass on each script to maintain coherence and vision, so he's to blame if that doesn't happen.

 

[Tavar]

I just listened to an interview by the Paradise Killer devs. The game was developed as a passion project by two industry veterans (I forget where they were employed), and they raised a similar point: Because the core development team was just two people, they could first of all create a very 'out there' gameworld filled with odd lore and characters, but also make drastic changes in the game systems and especially the exponentially growing dialog matrix very late in the development as they discovered bugs and things that just didn't work properly. The designer explicitly says that "There's no way you could do this with a bigger team because it requires one person to have all of this in his head and have the ability to very quickly do [whatever needs to be done]".

That's a very interesting point which echoes what Fred Brooks was saying in his famous book "The Mythical Man Month". He argues that conceptual integrity is the most important quality of a product and this requires that only one or two people make the important decisions. Here's a direct quote:

The conceptual integrity of the product, as perceived by the user, is the most important factor in ease of use. (...) There are many examples of elegant software products designed by a single mind, or by a pair. Most purely intellectual works such as books or musical compositions are so produced. (...) Any product that is sufficiently big or urgent to require the effort of many minds thus encounters a peculiar difficulty: the result must be conceptually coherent to the single mind of the user and at the same time designed by many minds. (...) I argue in Chapters 4 through 7 that the most important action is the commissioning of some one mind to be the product's architect, who is responsible for the conceptual integrity of all aspects of the product perceivable by the user.

This also explains why games which were designed by a committee feel so jarring: There were just too many different minds involved in their development.