Why RPG's these days suck!

[triCritical]

This is from a post on the IPLY boards about KotOR.

This game is bound to *beep* off millions of rabid Star Wars fans. Good thing though; this way it will be a normal game pleasing the masses who could care less for the number of two handed lightsabers or the amount of powerfull Jedis. As long it's a good crpg game with epic battles, nice writing, fancy graphics, sound and music I'll be more than satisfied. Screw hardcore roleplaying, I just want a fun action game that has some character development and a compelling story.

It'll be like BG2 in space.

Hooray!

The problem is that developers believe people like this are the major demographic. And because most hardcore RPG gamers still buy crap titles, it kind of reasures publishers that this is the kind of game we like. Anyhow, with people posting crap like this it doesn't surpise me that commercial roleplaying games in general are getting worse and worse. I think the only way to send a message is for people to stop buying games, even when you know its a game you are not going to like. I am guilty of this myself, and can't tell you how many people buy something and then complain endlessely about it

Oh Well, I just needed a place to rant.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It'll be like BG2 in space

Nice... I have no words. I've been sitting in front of the monitor for 5 minutes looking at the stupid comment that sums up the current state of gaming community, and I can't come up with a proper response. I guess I won't dignify it with an answer.

You know, it really is too much for one day. First, a gaming site states that Black Isle did NWN, then this....

a fun action game that has some character development and a compelling story

First of all, he would not know what a character developement is even if it bites him in his stupid ass. Second, BG2 did not have a compelling story.

it will be a normal game pleasing the masses who could care less ...

I liked it much better when computer games did not have a mass appeal or mass accessibility, 'cause then the masses came and started screwing everything.

 

[bobbob]

"The problem is that developers believe people like this are the major demographic

They are the major demographic, just look at the sales of rpg-lites like Diablo and it's ilk. Or even look at the consoles final fantasies. Ther're all simple and don't require a notable investment time to learn. Diablo and Final Fantasy sell millions and millions of copies, a deep game like fallout or morrowind, or baldur's gate's sales are only a fraction of the simpler rpg's. As for the Kotor game being simple, it's supposed to appeal to the masses of star wars, who in all liklihood would like a simpler experience,(Judging from the qualitiy of the films).

 

[Spazmo]

Baldur's Gate sold incredibly well, which causes a few questions to arise as to how the hell IPLY managed to go down the shitter with that huge cashcow behind it. And another BG isn't exactly what I would want to see as savior of the RPG.

We already knew the IPLY boards were full of idiots, by the way.

 

[triCritical]

They are the major demographic, just look at the sales of rpg-lites like Diablo and it's ilk.[/i]

As far as I know, Blizzard is the only company that can spend 3-4 years to make an simple game that will have a large appeal and make money. All the BG games combined sold what Diablo 2 did. From what I have seen, the majority of Diablo clones have been flops or utter failures. Where is Prince of Qin and Revenant? Why did Westwood abandon NOX? Why was Jowood so close to biting the bullet after releasing two RPG-lites? Count the list of clones over and over and you will find that the majority of them are flops. The reason is that unless a studio is going to have the resources to pull out a game like Blizzard its not going to succeed.

So why make games at all for the niche gamer? The reason is because they are the guaranteed market, they are the people that will buy the game no matter what. Alienate them and you are gambling on whether you employees will see its next paycheck. Do you really thing Bioware could pull out an poorly implemented game like BG1 after 3.5 years of development and expect to make a profit if it did not have the guaranteed DnD market? The problem with RPG's IMO, is that people, like the one originally quoted, try to bastardize RPG's into the kind of game they like playing. Developers find this attractive because now they think they can capture two markets, Deus Ex anyone? I think that if the niche gamers would boycott products that are essentially RPG-lite then we would see a lot less of them.

Keep in mind that just because lately you have seen a lot of Diablo clones doesn't mean they will succeed. Just looks at the MMORPG's of late. There is at least over 100 out and in development, and they are extremely costly to make. To think that that more then 10 of them are going to survive is ludicrous. The gaming community goes in cycles, my hope is that when this cycle ends people know what a good RPG really is.

Baldur's Gate sold incredibly well, which causes a few questions to arise as to how the hell IPLY managed to go down the shitter with that huge cashcow behind it. And another BG isn't exactly what I would want to see as savior of the RPG.

From what I have heard, a lot had to do with Brian Fargo's management style. Essentially paying huge amounts of cash for the Matrix license and then giving it to a division that makes big budget games that sell less copies then the HoW. Couple this with a series of flops for IPLY, such as MDK2, Anteus Rising, Free Space 2 and every game made by Shiny and you have yourself a losing formula. Even with that BG did not make that much money. It made less then BG2 and and it was in development for 3+ years.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well, the only reason Freespace 2 didn't sell well wasn't because it was a bad game but because Interplay's marketing department did a really shitty job at advertising it. They should have mentioned the "intrepid storyline" rather than the "blast em aliens up combat" that these bozos usually seem to do. These morons underestimate the teenage market a tad, unrealizing that it's teenagers who usually read sci-fi and fantasy novels packed full of rich stories (Lord of the Rings, or Discworld anyone?), as much as intelligent adults do. Hell, who in the right mind would want a sci-fi game without a storyline?

Quake 3 sold like crap crackers in comparison to other popular FPS's because it had absolutely nothing going for it besides the graphics, and it costed 20 dollars more than Doom. Sold well for the first month, but sales plunged right after. Nobody wants to spend 50 on an engine (aside from NWN lackeys). Half Life had far better sales because it had suspense, great setting, and a nice (albeit thin) storyline.

Freespace 2 sales only started picking up 8 months after it was released thanks to word of mouth and a strong mod community (B5 mod anyone?). The marketing people had no clue why that was.

 

[chrisbeddoes]

Wake up people .

The publisher of the game BUYS space for the game boxes in stores.

The publisher of the game BUYS advertisment and coverage in the media.

Can you understand this ?

The publisher decides how many games will be sold.

The quality of the game matters only in 2 cases.

a) It is incredibly good like say Morrowind or Fallout.

Then it will sell 50 % more because word of mouth

b) It is incedibly bad like Daikatana.

Then it will sell 50 % less because of word of mouth
(Financial disaster to publisher that has already bribed stores and media
bribed in a legal way of course)


All mediocre games will sell almost exactly as the publisher planned .
Publishers do not want quality games .
Publishers want a MEDIOCRE game at the fastest possible time to
reduce costs.
Like NWN as an example.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

They are the major demographic, just look at the sales of rpg-lites like Diablo and it's ilk.

I can't really name a Diablo clone that's sold really well. Most of them tank and tank badly.

Or even look at the consoles final fantasies.

I never understood why Final Fantasy games have sold well at all. Even then, though, most of the Final Fantasy clone console RPGs haven't sold as well. Final Fantasy clones for the PC tank really hard too. Even Final Fantasy didn't sell well on the PC.

Ther're all simple and don't require a notable investment time to learn.

I can't name too many CRPGs that do take a noticable amount of time to learn. Then again, I've seen some stupid questions asked about really simple CRPGs.

Diablo and Final Fantasy sell millions and millions of copies, a deep game like fallout or morrowind, or baldur's gate's sales are only a fraction of the simpler rpg's.

Baldur's Gate was fairly simple. The combat was passive. There wasn't anything you had to worry about when it came to dialogue. The quests were mostly simple, "Kill this monster" quests.

As for the Kotor game being simple, it's supposed to appeal to the masses of star wars, who in all liklihood would like a simpler experience,(Judging from the qualitiy of the films).

Where the color of the light saber is the most important thing.

 

[triCritical]

Like NWN as an example.

I don't get this. This project had about 50+ people working on it at times and took over 5 years to complete. The problem with this game, is that the Developers have no clue what it takes to make a good game and they tied to do 4 things when they should have been concentrating on one. Which was sell a utility program to DnD people.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Where was the thread of the initial comment? That just sounds fishy to me, like someone was trolling. Maybe the person really was that stupid, but it sounds almost like a caricature.

As far as Blizzard's games, I really wish all the me-too's in the industry would start attributing other things to their success. Every Blizzard game I've seen had out-of-date graphics by the time it was released, but I don't see much complaint about it like I do with other games. You start to see words like "functional" from people who'd be full of abuse for any other game that seemed behind the times. I imagine even a significant amount of graphics whores buy and enjoy Blizzard games. Blizzard supports the hell out of their games, though; they even put out a new Starcraft patch out last year, what, 4-5 years after it was released. Who else does that? If developers quit looking at Blizzard's success and thinking gamers just want click-fests and just try putting out well-polished work that they keep supporting, they might be surprised. I'll admit I like Starcraft and thought WC3 was at the very least worth the money, and I'm usually not really all that in to shallow games. Even if their stories are hackneyed, Blizzard knows how to give you a fun experience. When you put shallow gameplay and crap design and support together, though, (like most copycats) I won't even bother with it. Neither will most other people, judging by the success of all the me-too's. What's most astounding, though, is that nobody seems to have learned anything so far from all the flops and are just determined to repeat their mistakes because maybe it'll work the next time.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Blizzard supports the hell out of their games, though; they even put out a new Starcraft patch out last year, what, 4-5 years after it was released. Who else does that? If developers quit looking at Blizzard's success and thinking gamers just want click-fests and just try putting out well-polished work that they keep supporting, they might be surprised.

I agree. I think this is one of the important points about Blizzard, their support for their products. They put out a Diablo patch last year also, and that was released in 1997.

A lot of developers tend to drop support for a game when the publisher's contract runs out. If the game doesn't sell very well initially, that contract tends to run out quickly as well. This is more the norm for the PC gaming industry than the exception, and it should be the other way around, frankly.

I'd say this is also one of the big reasons people turn to console too. They want a game that works. It's not much fun to play a game that crashes or is loaded with bugs. I don't mind patching a game a few times. I do mind getting a game that gets one or two token patches and then support dries up for it.

 

[triCritical]

Where was the thread of the initial comment? That just sounds fishy to me, like someone was trolling. Maybe the person really was that stupid, but it sounds almost like a caricature.

It was written by a moderator of the Interplay boards in the general gaming discussion for KotOR. I don' think the dude the was trolling. I am pretty sure that he as well as many other are sincere when they say this stuff.

 

[Azael]

I believe Rayt is a member of this board too, isn't he?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I believe Rayt is a member of this board too, isn't he?

Yeah, he is. I can't wait to see his reaction to this thread if he's the nutty little nut-nut that wrote that original post that triCritical pasted. :D

 

[triCritical]

Yeah, he is. I can't wait to see his reaction to this thread if he's the nutty little nut-nut that wrote that original post that triCritical pasted. :D

I find it completely ironic that someone who can give a rats ass about the role in roleplaying would join a site thats tag line is, "putting the the 'role' back in RPG." What a poser.

 

[Rayt]

Where was the thread of the initial comment? That just sounds fishy to me, like someone was trolling. Maybe the person really was that stupid, but it sounds almost like a caricature.

It was written by a moderator of the Interplay boards in the general gaming discussion for KotOR. I don' think the dude the was trolling. I am pretty sure that he as well as many other are sincere when they say this stuff.

I was actually. I'm sorry.

 

[Rayt]

*snip*

Half Life had far better sales because it had suspense, great setting, and a nice (albeit thin) storyline.

I believe Half Life sold incredibly well a because of it's fun multiplayer feauture and later on Counterstrike.

 

[Jarinor]

So, you do realise that you can have more than one quote in a post don't you? And how to copy paste?

I believe Half Life sold incredibly well a because of it's fun multiplayer feauture and later on Counterstrike.

Quite a few of the people I know bought HL for the single player and then moved onto the multiplayer, then CS when it came out. It's not like CS was available upon release.

As for your original comments, SHAME ON YOU!

 

[Rayt]

So, you do realise that you can have more than one quote in a post don't you? And how to copy paste?

I believe Half Life sold incredibly well a because of it's fun multiplayer feauture and later on Counterstrike.

Quite a few of the people I know bought HL for the single player and then moved onto the multiplayer, then CS when it came out. It's not like CS was available upon release.

As for your original comments, SHAME ON YOU!

You know, I didn't notice that the rest of the thread could be read below the reply box. The Interplay forum doesn't have this feature (which makes quoting multiple people in one post quite a hassle), so I figured RPGcodex didn't have it either.

About HalLife, yes i know Counterstrike was released much later, that's why I said "later on". Counterstrike is one the reason why Half Life kept on selling immensely years after and the success of the Generation packs and such. Maybe it's just different where you live, but here in Holland most people bought it later on when they found out you needed an original cd key to play online, so their pirated copies were worthless.

As for the comment; yeah, I regret posting it. It wasn't even funny.

 

[Aldin]

I love subject lines

I've always thought of the Final Fantasy games as the RPG world's version of an entry level drug. It has the ability to 'hook' kids and get them to try the more hard core stuff. The first Final Fantasy I played was like that for me. Within the year I was playing Bard's Tale and Might & Magic - I never looked back.

As far as our niche goes, we've got a bit of a problem. Many of us have defected to MMORPGs. As long as our money can be fleeced in such a simple manner, why should anyone try to satisfy the cravings for deep storylines that run as an undercurrent through the community?

~Aldin

 

[axel]

I bought Half life for the single player... and most of the reviews and previews I remember talked about the single player, especially the AI and the scripted events were prominant.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I know a shitload of people who preordered it and bought it because of the promise of Team Fortess 2 being released for Half-Life as a free add-on. It wasn't until after Christmas that Valve announced that TF2 wouldn't be a free add on.

 

[Azael]

When the hell is TF2 going to come out, BTW?

 

[SexExitium]

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

When the hell is TF2 going to come out, BTW?

Who knows. I lost interest in it after playing TFC for Half Life, which is horribly unbalanced. The original Team Fortress had balance issues, but it was no where near as awful as TFC. If that's their idea of balancing Team Fortress, then TF2 will be a joke.