Why the hell aren't there more "space opera" / futuristic CRPGs?

[vonAchdorf]

Star Wars builds on familiar fantasy concepts, the others are a tactics game, a shooter, a Gold Box game and a flight sim.

 

[Roqua]

Star Wars builds on familiar fantasy concepts, the others are a tactics game, a shooter, a Gold Box game and a flight sim.

Yes. Sci-fi and fantasy are equally the same amount of easy/difficult regardless of game genre.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I read a forward from an author who was mentored by some of the great sci-fi authors, like Heinlein. I forget his name. It was the forward of a sci-fi short story anthology, and I have a million of them so I'm not looking.

He said that the difference between real sci-fi and fantasy is plausibility and possibility. Star Wars was fantasy. Stranger in a Strange land was fantasy. He went into plausibility, which was more science related. Like books that don't even make an attempt to explain science impossibilities like how speed relativity doesn't apply.

It goes without saying his forward was a lot better than my paraphrasing, and he listed a bunch of great scientific examples for the plausibility part.

Yeah I personally don't like when people occasionally act like science fiction and fantasy are a single genre, one maintains at least the pretence of scientific thinking, the other makes no attempt. The argument from a literary perspective is that something like the Old Norse believing the halls of their ancestors lay inside mountains was just the same as setting a mystical place in sci-fi on another planet, i.e. you push the unknown fog of war back from the inside of a now-sonar-scanned mountain to a new place that can't be seen. But while this is true on a purely symbolic level, science fiction attempts to at least suggest there is a naturalistic reason, as opposed to supernatural. Star Trek for example always came up with some plausible suggestion of sound science and paid lip service to empiricism; what people mistakenly deride as babble was usually quite grounded. Numenera is a good example of why science fantasy is still science fiction; everything present in fantasy is present, but all of it could have arisen by Darwinian evolution or epochal change or discarded genetic engineering over eons. Technically a bonded piece of nanotechnology functions like an enchanted helm or something but one will never exist, the other might. I don't mind when they are blended; basically things like Numenera and Doctor Who are science fantasy, but still a remote possibility.

I would guess the biggest difference is the scope and background needed to make a convincing sci-fi space opera. Post-apoc is easy, you just take the current world, fuck it up, and add a few bits here and there for flavour (mutants and whatnot). Fantasy is easy if you're okay with sticking to the standard tropes. Everyone already knows that dwarfs are short drunks that live in mountains, elves are poncy racist tree-huggers, and orcs/ogres/goblins/etc are ugly evil things, and you probably travel around on horseback and buy things from merchants. But unless you're writing a Star Trek game or whatever, you have to start from scratch, and there's a lot to consider. Just having it set in space at all is a problem. What technology do they use to travel in space? Wormholes? FTL? Something more conventional combined with hypersleep? How do they communicate and stay organised over such distances? Are there colonised worlds, or just space stations? Where do they get their food and water? What sort of power source do they use? What system of government are they using? Are there robots? How advanced are they? What about AI? And how does all of this translate into gameplay (combat/travel/resource management)? Then repeat this all over again multiple times for different races, and then figure out the inter-racial politics and whatnot too, their various backgrounds, how they communicate with each other, how they met, and fit that convincingly into gameplay as well.

A good fantasy should think about all that stuff, sociology etc, so perhaps that is why so many fantasy games are so bland; small devs keep pumping out inferior simulacrum of Tolkien without any of the understanding, erudition or scholarship he put into building his world, from the philosophy, down to the philology. Where his words carefully suggested a lost age and complex ethical concepts, they just populate their game world with ale drinking Dwarves, not realising what they symbolised.

I disagree with people saying there is a huge disparity in effort from inventing a sci-fi setting/world/universe and a fantasy world.

A far off colony on a distant world could be sparsely populated.

Yeah, and also, I think some people are trying to imagine how a civilization might look 300 years from now, accounting for constant progression, but many of the best sci-fi settings have actually declined, allowing the author to just do whatever they want, like Dune (where AI is banned), or Warhammer 40,000 (where every day in the army is like Stalingrad), or Farscape (where some cast away species of industrial grub is now used to clean your teeth) for example. Imagination is the limit. Look at something like Primordia or Gemini Rue from Wadjet Eye Games.

 

[Glaucon]

Look into jrpgs, the genre is full of scifi-fantasy hybrid settings.

 

[Roqua]

Look into jrpgs, the genre is full of scifi-fantasy hybrid settings.

No one with good enough taste to like crpgs would waste their time on jrpgs. No chargen, no chardev, all preset characters in a preset story that plays as passively as a book or movie.

Why are filthying up this discussion with kid game recommendations?

For shame, sir! For shame!

 

[Darth Canoli]

...or to put it another way, why don't we have Baldur's Star-Gate?

 

[Rahdulan]

Look into jrpgs, the genre is full of scifi-fantasy hybrid settings.

Nah, JRPGs are full-on kitchen sink "throw shit to the wall and something will stick" approach. You could say amorphous ill-defined settings are one of JRPG hallmarks from world building perspective. They generally have little to no standout identity to speak of. Bigger, better and more well known titles which become fan favorites are generally exceptions, but how many JRPGs can you think of that have their settings defined and rooted in certain theme or period like, for example, Valkyrie Profile does with Nordic mythology? At best most just use terminology because it sounds cool.

 

[Bigg Boss]

From a world building point of view, science fiction can do anything fantasy can, perhaps even more given it's scope.

The ratio of fantasy to space opera RPGs must be something like 100 to 1, if not even worse. Off the top of my head, I can think of only 6 genuine space opera CRPGs, all in two franchises: Mass Effect and Star Wars. No isometric ones to speak of. Add to this maybe one or two closely related genres such as future history/planetary romance/dying Earth, and you can add Torment: Tides of Numenera to that list. Aside from that there are a couple of old pre-1995 things like Albion and Megatraveller, and a couple of upcoming indie games like Stellar Tactics and The New World.

That is still tiny compared to the seemingly hundreds of fantasy RPGs that have been released on PC since the 1980s, and space opera accounts for probably less than half the number of games when compared to post-apocalyptic CRPGs, a smaller literary genre. I'm guessing there are about 20 or so of those, in the form of stuff like Wasteland, Fallout and UnderRail, meaning a tiny sub-genre of science fiction is doing better than the one where alien worlds, social ideas and intelligent species are commonplace.

I see lots of generic fantasy games appearing all the time as smaller releases or indie games. Some of them are shockingly bland distillations of fantasy as a fiction genre, with characters like 'Scottish-accented-Dwarf #375'. To be fair, aside from Planescape Torment, I can't think of many that seem written by someone familiar with Moorcock or Wolfe or Gaiman. Since the RPG is kinda a genre created by geeks for geeks, why are there so few space ones? Why hasn't someone, say, adapted Traveller into a CRPG? Why is there no Star Trek RPG? Or Babylon 5 RPG?

I would love to see something like a space-UnderRail even, but can't InExile or whoever do an isometric Traveller RPG?

Random game developer fishing for interest:

Yes. We know this. I know this. I keep saying this. Make the motherfucking game already. Isometric turn based with a world map and 0 faggotry. Go. NOW. I'LL HOLD THEM OFF!

FUCK YOU FANTASY FAGGOTS!!!!!

 

[Master]

...or to put it another way, why don't we have Baldur's Star-Gate?

Why isnt there a Star Gate videogame, of any genre? Seems like a no brainer. Werent they funded by the Military, for advertisement or something? A shooter would be obvious choice but a BG style rpg would be cool. Heck there's even a Farscape rpg thats isometric party based. But no Star Gate.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Take a look at the recent Cyberpunk 2077 video and think about what it would take to create a fully realized space opera setting.

There's a reason why when there are space opera RPGs, they're often set on far-flung colonies, space stations and the like, and keep you away from heavily populated planets.

Not saying a game has to have a fully realized setting, but the endless detail of modern life is something the developer would at least have to think about in this age of seamless open worlds. Fantasy and post-apoc are simpler.

THIS IS.....BULLSHIT.

I won't even explain why.

 

[DraQ]

I read a forward from an author who was mentored by some of the great sci-fi authors, like Heinlein. I forget his name. It was the forward of a sci-fi short story anthology, and I have a million of them so I'm not looking.

He said that the difference between real sci-fi and fantasy is plausibility and possibility. Star Wars was fantasy. Stranger in a Strange land was fantasy. He went into plausibility, which was more science related. Like books that don't even make an attempt to explain science impossibilities like how speed relativity doesn't apply.

It goes without saying his forward was a lot better than my paraphrasing, and he listed a bunch of great scientific examples for the plausibility part.

There exists a subset of sci-fi that is dedicated to exploring consequences of changes in fundamental laws of physics and the like - in other words it deals with stuff that is inherently implausible.
It nevertheless is sci-fi, and contains some of the hardest, most monocled stuff I have ever read - Egan's "Orthogonal" trilogy and "Dichronauts" for example - because it focuses on scientifically rigorous worldbuilding and exploring the consequences of the changes. Both examples I listed deal with universes based on different metrics of spacetime which in turn messes up pretty much all the physics (Orthogonal) or even basic geometry (Dichronauts), the plots being build around those changes, and thus not really replicable in any meaningful sense without hard sci-fi basis (the events could happen, but without the logic bridging them the resulting story would be meaningless), so no:

I disagree with people saying there is a huge disparity in effort from inventing a sci-fi setting/world/universe and a fantasy world.

You can't just hot swap stories and stuff between sci-fi and fantasy. Your perception is simply coloured by most of the "sci-fi" out there being of rubber forehead variety (in other words - crap).

And then there is the grey area between sci-fi and fantasy I personally call phi-fi - stuff based on different philosophical paradigms, to the point where you can no longer refer to it as different physics, but still having certain rigour to it - Dukaj's "Inne Pieśni" ("Other Songs") for example.

The Death Star might be a stretch, but hell, let's just make it a giant "Death Boat" and have it sink islands instead of blowing up planets.

Or some temple of doom.

I know where you are coming from, the whole Joseph Campbell angle, but the distinction for me is that the trappings attempt to at least pay lip service to naturalism

And that's all it is - lip service.
It has no bearing on anything.

No one with good enough taste to like crpgs would waste their time on jrpgs.

Anachronox. Your argument is invalid.

all preset characters in a preset story that plays as passively as a book or movie.

Like in PS:T?

Just having it set in space at all is a problem. What technology do they use to travel in space? Wormholes? FTL? Something more conventional combined with hypersleep? How do they communicate and stay organised over such distances?

Could you people please fucking read Quantum Thief trilogy before posting (again) in this thread?

 

[Master]

I had the impression Quantum Thief is of the more fantastical variety, like that Golden Age trilogy by JC Wright.

 

[lightbane]

The answer is simple: It can be done, but it would require way too much effort and thinking from part of the devs, something that won't fly nowadays as companies keep getting worse and indies keep recycling the same pixel shit over and over.

 

[Roqua]

he plots being build around those changes

I said - "like books that don't even make an attempt to explain science impossibilities like how speed relativity doesn't apply."

I should have phrased it different, sure. But you get the point. In your examples they base the story on a real scientific theory they understand it. He's making an example of authors that either don't understand it, or do and ignore it because it would hurt the plot - just pretend it isn't a thing. Pretending it isn't a thing works because most people have no idea. I know the popular theories, and I watch a lot of shows like Cosmos, but I have no idea about the intricacies of space, radiation (I was like 25 when I found out Gamma radiation was real and not invented by Marvel Comics), etc. On a show I saw it said space dust would puncture holes through any metal or composite flying through it at the speed of light. Or am I remembering what they said wrong? I have no idea because I have no idea about the real physics behind any of it. I remember reading an article of why it would be impossible to reach the speed of light because of some math that just gets fractional and gets close but can never actually reach it. I saw a show about pi and how they use a hexagonal shape they keep dividing on the outside of circle to get it tighter and tighter to get more decimals in pi - the same way the first guy did it in Italy. The guy killed by invaders who was drawing in the sand and told them not to mess up what hew as working on when they went to kill him. That seems crazy to me. How are computers not doing this in a more technical way by now? But since I am no math genius I take the shows word for it.

You can't just hot swap stories and stuff between sci-fi and fantasy. Your perception is simply coloured by most of the "sci-fi" out there being of rubber forehead variety (in other words - crap).

And then there is the grey area between sci-fi and fantasy I personally call phi-fi - stuff based on different philosophical paradigms, to the point where you can no longer refer to it as different physics, but still having certain rigour to it - Dukaj's "Inne Pieśni" ("Other Songs") for example.

I can't think of one high-brow hard sci-fi rpg I've ever played. If you named some games it would be a different story. And a waste since all the effort to make a realistic hard sci-fi game will go down the toilet as soon as the player does any game stuff - the whole point of a game.

Anachronox. Your argument is invalid.

No it isn't. I said - "No chargen, no chardev, all preset characters in a preset story that plays as passively as a book or movie." You can like Anachronox and see my critique of the genre still applies to it. I didn't like Anachronox because it is just like every other jrpg.

Like in PS:T?

Yes, like PST. A game I dislike due to it having preset characters in a preset story and really bad combat like all the IE games. I play rpgs to create a story, not to have one told to me like in a book or movie. Since you like science, the creator of rpgs stated - “Roleplaying isn’t storytelling. If the dungeon master is directing it, it’s not a game.” Also, I dislike watching combat. I prefer combat that requires me to think and be involved and try.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Just a random bit of info here from your resident autist:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/10/best-rpg/9/
Here are some observations about the list:

Free: Five of the games are free, including Bethesda’s Daggerfall.

Series and Settings: Speaking of Daggerfall, there are three Elder Scrolls games in the list. Fallout and Ultima are the only other series with more than one entry (two apiece, counting Ultima Underworld as an Ultima title). Dungeons & Dragons is the most popular setting though. Across all the various D&D worlds, there are five entries, most of which are planted in the Forgotten Realms. Thirty nine take place in settings that were created specifically for the game in question (or the series it is part of) rather than based on an external property. The remainder are mostly based on pen and paper RPG systems.

Fantasy: Broadly speaking, fantasy settings are dominant, as you might expect. However, fifteen games are either outright science fiction or something close enough that they don’t quite fit with the sword and sorcery themes typical of fantasy.

Points of view: A slightly niche point of differentiation but an interesting one nonetheless – fifteen of the games are entirely or partly played from a first-person perspective. And before you shake your fist and claim that you “remember when all of this were isometric fields”, many of the earliest games had a first-person viewpoint, including Pool of Radiance.

Here’s the EDITED LIST TORONTO LIVE HACKING THE AIRWAVES VIA QUOTE EDITING FUCK YOU RPS!

Planescape: Torment-THE TOTEM
Deus Ex-FPS decline although very good decline. Like porno.
System Shock 2-Fuck System Shock 2. Put the original on here assholes. Still it isn't isometric so fuck you DECLINE.
FTL-No.
Fallout-YES.
Mass Effect 2-Get this DECLINE out of my face it sickens me. Although I applaud it for being sci fi it is not the sci fi we deserve. Instead we get Pillars of Eternity 3: The Faggening.
Vampire: Bloodlines-YES. Less bugs and isometric you fucking idiots.
NEO Scavenger-good game. Not really the RPG we deserve. Where is Batman when you need him?
Deus Ex: Human Revolution-Get this fucking shit out of my face before I stab you with an icepick .
KOTOR-Good game. Still the DECLINE incarnated in video game form.
Anachranox-JRPG DECLINE that never really took off. Kinda a one off that needs a fucking sequel. HEAR ME!?
Fallout: New Vegas-Best of a shit situation. If it came down to having more fantasy isometric or another one of these I would choose this.
Sunless Sea-More of a roguelike really. Good though. More of these.
Shadowrun Dragonfall Director’s Cut-Great except it is a boxed off, lore dump, turn based tactical game with no fucking world map or exploration.
Wasteland 2-*sigh*
Space Rangers 2-I need to play this.

Look at it. This is all I fucking have to work with?

*spits in disgust*

Planescape I left on the list despite it's fantasy faggotry mostly due to it being so fucking unique, with steampunkish elements....speaking of which where is Arcanum? Oh these fucking morons left it out. Anyway...have you noticed how hardly any of these games have a fucking world map with isometric TB and hardcore C&C action? WHY!?

You know what? Keep the fucking C&C then. Too much work? Fine. JUST GIVE ME A FUCKING WORLD MAP THAT ISN'T FANTASY PLEASE. I WILL SACRIFICE A FUCKING GOAT. Do we need to spell it out? Do I need to draw up design docs? If I wasn't a shut in I would come help but this is the best you are going to get.


I will use a selection of artwork so you can get the picture. I will fucking paint it for you. Pitch it to your resident soulless Publisher or Kickstart.

Spoiler

So what's so hard about designing a world map that is a solar system with a limited selection of planets you can travel to like in Fallout? Do your soulless cash grab DLC to add more at a later date.

OR...since people JUST DON'T GET IT!


Scenario 1 from random overhead map:

Modern day world war. Not post apocalypse. Set during the event. You play as some random passenger surviving a plane crash in the middle of...wherever the fuck this is. Don't care. Irrelevant. Point is modern day is doable in many ways. Random encounters can flesh out the parts of the world that would need excessive design due to the numerous factors. When you are on the world map in Fallout in NCR territory you know there are gangs and shit you are passing by, just because you don't see them....As long as you run into them...you know they are there somewhere. It's all about world building + believability = atmosphere. Allow me to elaborate...


Scenario 2 I will give you one of my good ideas go make it:


Special Agent something or another in whatever time period as long as it is in between the 1950's and 2000's. You would essentially be Dale Cooper or that X-Files dude nobody likes. The main thing to take away from this idea is this. You have investigations you go on part of your main quest, but random encounters could pop up like Bigfoot, Mothman, whatever, to allow the world to feel real...and bigger than it actually is of course. You couldn't go through every town in the USA obviously but why would you need to? Plus you can use other dimensions to pad stuff out. It's all on file in this lumpy grey matter in my skull playing right now at full speed fyi. Yep. Just finished the game in my head.

Scenario 3 ANYTHING THAT IS NOT POST APOCALYPTIC:

Don't get me wrong. I want a real Fallout. I just don't see it right now. I think we need to move beyond that and sci fi in general is one way, but anything not fantasy is also another. Why is Persona popular? Why is Earthbound popular? Why is Harry Potter popular? Why is Star Wars popular? Why is Guardian of the Galaxy popular? Why Are superheroes popular? Why are spies, cowboys, cops, robbers, serial killers, and soldiers popular? These are things you want to do but are too dumb or weak or poor or sane to do. LARPING about being a mystical elf on the continent of Fagheim is great until you have been doing it for thirty plus years. Sometimes you want to be Sherlock Holmes in Victorian Age London working alongside...I don't know Doctor Who or fucking Captain Picard or something. The one thing being don't ever turn these games into a MMO dummies. We want Fallout but we don't need what we want kinda like you don't give kids too much candy. Give us something NEW to shake shit up and expand these morons brains. I beg you.

Scenario 4:

Ok. post apocalyptic but superheros. So you have your fucking tagline. FALLOUT BUT SUPERHEROES. DONE. DONE. DONE. *Summons MCA/Sawyer/Larian/anyone please halp. I can go all day. Why don't you stop making the same games over and over and over and over and over and over and over....

Why don't you want my fucking money? Get your fucking 1980's shit out of my face. If I wanted Might and Magic I would fucking play it. It's perfect. Exception: Might and Magic except in...


Scenario 5:

Or scrap that FPS shit and do it isometric in a narrow interdimensional city like environment....you see how this works right? Hard to tell it's a one way conversation.
You guys know nothing is original right? You can just rip this shit off and copy paste it like all these hacks that make millions of dollars and claim to be original? You have the skills. I can't program. I just have ideas. Pages and pages of ideas. Call me. I live here.

 

[Darth Canoli]

The answer is simple: It can be done, but it would require way too much effort and thinking from part of the devs, something that won't fly nowadays as companies keep getting worse and indies keep recycling the same pixel shit over and over.

The problem has multiple sources.
More and more people develop games, are they all geniuses ? No, in fact, less and less of them so of course, there's a lot of uninspired games.

Recent studies shows that global creativity and intellect are in regression, it was progressing until the 80's.

The answer is probably something like we're more and more connected, that reduces the probability of having singular brilliant minds, instead, we've got a ton of average or simple-minded people, of course, it doesn't help creating amazing games / movies / whatever.
I'm not saying it's not happening every now and then but in percentage of global creation, it's declining.

And of course, game devs having their inspiration from video games would recycle the same stuff over and over again while 40 years ago, they got their inspiration from everywhere else ...

The bottom line is : "We're screwed !"

 

[Serus]

Dune IS science-fiction. Star Wars aren't. Just saying.

 

[Roqua]

Dune IS science-fiction. Star Wars aren't. Just saying.

Why is this? Dune had as much nonsensical non-science as Star Wars. How are you defining sci-fi?

 

[Cael]

Since the RPG is kinda a genre created by geeks for geeks, why are there so few space ones? Why hasn't someone, say, adapted Traveller into a CRPG? Why is there no Star Trek RPG? Or Babylon 5 RPG?

They all got veni, vidi, vici'd by Mass Effect.

Like how Obama killed off any chance of America having a black President for the next 200 years

Spoiler

 

[Bigg Boss]

Dune IS science-fiction. Star Wars aren't. Just saying.

Space opera is just poor man's sci fi. Same shit. Less creative.

 

[Serus]

Dune IS science-fiction. Star Wars aren't. Just saying.

Why is this? Dune had as much nonsensical non-science as Star Wars. How are you defining sci-fi?

No it doesn't*, not even close.
Look at what essentially Dune and Star Wars are:
Star Wars is a tale of a group of heroes using mythical "force" fighting in a galaxy-encompassing struggle of good vs evil.
Dune describes a political struggle in a far future society that reverted to feudalism.

While they might be elements that aren't scientifically sound in Dune (how does interstellar travel really works for once), in many fields what it describes is based on scientific principles (sociology, biology, ecology) while SW doesn't care at all about such things.
Example: In Dune you have the whole ecosystem that supports a species of giant creatures in there. In SW you have giant spaceship-eating monsters that don't make any sense and are there because they are cool (and they really are cool!).

*at least the original book: Dune which is the one I'm talking about. I don't remember later books that well (and I've never read anything past God Emperor iirc).

 

[Roqua]

In my opinion - both Star Wars and Dune treated science the same and took a very story-prime, fantasy approach to sci-fi. I love Dune, so don't think I am knocking it or anything.

I think "A Mote in God's Eye" is a good example of sci-fi, or a lot of Asimov's stuff. My favorite sci-fi author was very wishy-washy with science when it got in the way of his story (Heinlein).

 

[Trash]

Ok. post apocalyptic but superheros. So you have your fucking tagline. FALLOUT BUT SUPERHEROES. DONE. DONE. DONE. *Summons MCA/Sawyer/Larian/anyone please halp. I can go all day. Why don't you stop making the same games over and over and over and over and over and over and over....

Reminds me, Superhero League of Hoboken did that. It's also still a pretty cool game to play. Fun mix of rpg and adventure comedy game.

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/245/Superhero+League+of+Hoboken.html

 

[Bigg Boss]

Ok. post apocalyptic but superheros. So you have your fucking tagline. FALLOUT BUT SUPERHEROES. DONE. DONE. DONE. *Summons MCA/Sawyer/Larian/anyone please halp. I can go all day. Why don't you stop making the same games over and over and over and over and over and over and over....

Reminds me, Superhero League of Hoboken did that. It's also still a pretty cool game to play. Fun mix of rpg and adventure comedy game.

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/245/Superhero+League+of+Hoboken.html

I played it but I did not play it long. I saw it was truly unique and did not want to waste it. Same with Arcanum. Rainy day fund of RPG Autism.

 

[Beowulf]

He he. You guys remember Mandate?