The state of the RPG address

[Pascal]

I really think game publishers have forgot what RPGs are all about. Roll Playing is all about living in a fantasy world as if you were really there. The difference between a simulator and a RPG is RPG is based in a fantasy world, were reality doesn’t always apply. Now the problem begins, game publishers have been sacrificing content over graphics. RPGs of recent times have gotten very linier, with little verity of chooses. Though the games may allow us to customize our characters a bit, actually chooses in the game have no effect on the final outcome. To make a good RPG, the player must be able to interact with the game content. By making one choose in the game, they effect there out come later in the game.

If game publishers don’t find there way back to there base, they will destroy the RPG game gene, and RPG will blend into the Action Adventure Gene.

 

[Rorschach]

Well the only game i know of where the actual end changes depending on the choices you make is Fabel. The only problem is that the bulk of the game comes from side-quests, so if you dont bother with them you have a 15 hour game from start to finish. But Pupusa knows more about the game then I do.

Origionally the only RPG's that we had for console was FF1 and other games that were more of a story then anything. We were the main character in all of the games and the end was almost always the same. The only RPG that i played that had different ending, which just ended up as "who ends up friends with who after you kill the main boss" was Star Ocean 2. It was my first, and not oddly enough my favorite RPG. But back onto topic...

We never had the ability to change anything in the story since there are too many variables to contend with. And i dont think that there is a game that can do the same things that one could do in say D&D. Not even FF11 can say that. In this game we are the hero and there is only one real outcome "You Win {Congradulations!}" lol we dont even get that since there really is no "end" to the game. Just get stronger and kill Dynamis Lord if thats considered the "end" to this game.

Besides games like these really dont or cant change the basic outcome of the end anyway. In the end theres only 3 choices that any story can end with. You win, you lose, or the basic open-ended "no one really knows what happened/it was all a dream (thanks Mario 2 :evil: ). We are all familiar with the the first end, and the second end is bad since no one wants to think that they did all this work to lose in end. And the last one is so weak that i dont really need to say anymore then that.

So devolopers decided that the end wasnt really all that important. Which it isnt, i mean all you need is for the end to make sence and that you feel that you like the end that they give you a sence of accomplishment. Do you read a mystery novel to know "who did it?" no one really cares, its all about the buildup, the journey, how you got there and not why you are there.

Now dont get me wrong, if the end is trash it makes the buildup worthless and a waste of time, but thats never what the devolopers could influence (without it being total crap), so they mess around with what they can: everything inbetween. Side-quests, plot twists, interesting characters that we get attached to and villians that we love to hate. These are all things that the devolopers have total control over. And saddly this is also where they do tend to screw the pooch.

Just like you said, we get games that look great, yet have the most boring story lines or just straight out play like dog crap. Its sad when we get games that play out in the same manner that FF1 looked.

All I have to do is mention "The Summer of Square" to my brother, Pupusa and Ghaleon and they either laugh, semi-cry or get totally pissed off and kick a wall. I forget what games they were since i wasnt into RPG's at the time but all i remember was how good the games looked. Those were games that looked, for their time, awsome, they looked like they had such promise but in the end they were total crap. My brother played each game for a few hours and then looked real angry since he wasted a lot of his money for no apperant reason.

While yes I do aggree that RPG's in general need to go back to the basics, we have to realize that there is no real formula to get the perfect RPG. And when you do get the perfect RPG, that game becomes the game in which all other games are tested against, which makes all others look worse in comparison. Or they get accused of being total rip-offs of the said previous "perfect" game.

Looking at this post, all I can say is sorry for the length lol ^^; I didnt mean for it to go on this long, its just that this isnt an easy topic to answer in a few lines.

 

[Pascal]

Let me say that was one well written post.

For me the perfect RPG is one that you can play multiple times and play it differently each time. While the actually ending may be the same, the path to get there can take multiple directions.

Some of the best RPGs where the 8bit D&D games approved by TSR. I can’t remember the game publisher who put them out, but they were mostly based on Forgotten Realms. Based on your race or job, a NPC may act differently to you. When talking to an NPC you were giving a list of chooses of responses. With one set of responses you would get one thing, maybe a bit of information on what to do next. While the other set of responses you would get something different. Making certain chooses in the game would lead you down one game path, while another set of chooses would give you a different path.

It gives you the feeling as you are a part of the story, rather than just following the story. While the current RPG may give you limited chooses, you still gain the feeling you are not a part of the story.

 

[Rorschach]

Well if you want a game that has some pretty good replay value in that you get a differnt feel each time you play, i highly suggest giving Star Ocean 2 for PS1 a try a try.

You have the ability to get 12 characters in total, but you can only have a total of 8 on your team so there will be some characters that you will have to sacrifice getting.

Then theres the fact that the only way you can know the whole story is if you play as both characters, the story splits off in certian spots where not all the characters are at the same place so the only way to learn what happens then in to do the game again, in their roll.

You can craft items in that game depending on what natrual abilities you get when you start. Its random so if you want to make the main character good at say cooking, you might have to start the game over once or twice not really fun to manipulate it that way but still interesting. I had in one of my games like over 122 clocked hours and that doesnt even take into consideration how many times i would either restart things so that i could re-craft certian items or go over plot points again and other things that happend in the game. I really suggest it for anyone who enjoys long RPG's.

 

[Raesvelg]

MMORPGs are hard to do properly from a RP perspective. To be honest, that's why I originally didn't want to play FFXI. >.> But I suppose it could be DONE, it would just be tricky and might piss a lot of people off if things didn't go their way.

 

[Sethala]

Well, the thing with putting a "story" inside a MMORPG is, you have to make sure that you can have a progressing story yet never actually need to change the world. You also can't have the playable characters do anything surprising (so plot twists have to stick to NPCs), and PCs don't really have a background story to draw from, so all character development also has to stick to NPCs. This is one thing that FFXI did very well, considering the restrictions - there's an actual storyline that's full of the classic RPG twists, yet it's not required to enjoy the game (although with Sky, that's debatable).

 

[Strid]

The only deal with MMORPGS not really partaking to the RPG side is the people. The people ultimatly decide wether or not role playing will take place. As for console games I don't get your drift. RPG's differ from actions A LOT imo. However, too each his own.

 

[wolfskymoon]

WoW atleast has talents that u can put into different spots and like customize how ur char does against certain mobs/jobs.

 

[Ecks]

WSM he's isnt talking about character customization. >.> Reading Comprehension <>Do you have it?<>

He's talking about a players actions effecting the world in which you play in.

The reason there arent any real games outside of MUD's that are like this is because just think of how freaking hard it would be. Props to the first video game to really do this successfully (that game doesn't exist yet). Fable was setup to kind of do this but to be honest you didn't effect that much in the world, it moreso directly effected changes in your character. It would be a lot easier to program responses and stuff that change the way you shape one single thing rather than the mass of complexity it would require to really make a game that an action taken early on could cause some kind of random or not so random outcome later on within the world somewhere.

Well I'm forgetting, they did infact try this. A little game called Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls III. If you have ever played this game, the freedom it allows is truely spectacular. The only problem with this game was that it was just so expansive that well, things can get boring. You really can do just about anything in that game, be as evil as you like or as good as you like. Run around murdering people and by doing so become feared and hated by many. The game truely was what I think would define an RPG in atleast the sense of what Pascal is talking about.

You can do things differently everytime you play. If you kill someone they don't come back. While Morrowind does have a main storyline that you can follow up on, you don't have to follow up with it really or atleast you don't have to follow up with it as you would most games. Now to actually finish the game you would have to complete the story, but there are so many places and people to meet and things you can do. I myself have never beaten it, even when cheating my ass off, its just so big of a game. You're free to create your character any which way you want develope any skills you want, but you'll find yourself leaning towards one aspect or another for simple reasons like.. you want to be able to survive battles you may not be able to avoid.

With all that, if you haven't played Morrowind it may sound great to you, but I can tell you that, as decent a RPG as it is. It isn't great, and while many things are done so well in that game, one of the big downsides is the combat system. It's basically, FPS style, and you click your mouse to attack things. While this starts out okay, it gets old after a while.. as the game.. isnt a First Person Shooter its a RPG. Just kinda feels wrong in a sense.

The game itself isnt bad, and with it and it's expansions as low as they are in price you might as well grab it and pick it up if it sounds interesting to you. It's available for PC, and there is also an X-Box version of the game.

Back to the topic, it's just hard to make a game where everything you do, effects something and still keep the game fun.

My personal favorite types of RPGs are well.. the traditional kind. You play a character through a story that's already written out. A really good rpg like this, to me, is almost like reading a book, but instead you're playing through it with flashy graphics. When a character dies and you feel saddened, you know that's a good rpg. When you finish it and can go "Wow that was great." That's a good rpg.

RPG's that this applies to for me would be:

Lufia II
Final Fantasy 3/6
Final Fantasy 7
Lunar: Silver Star Story (Complete)
Chrono Trigger
Grandia

RPG's that I've highly enjoyed but not finished:

.Hack (loved the story & characters, just got stuck on the 3rd game because the dungeons finally got to me.) I will finish this one day.
Star Ocean II (Fantastic game, but for some reason I just stopped playing it)
Kingdom Hearts (I loved this game, but I think got really into MMOs at this time and never got around to playing it through, plus I got stuck on one part)
Final Fantasy 8 (I really liked this game despite what most people say, I just got ticked off because of a miniquest I really wanted to do, should have been able to do, but couldnt, and then stopped playing it >< )

 

[chpal]

I understand everything you guys are saying about RPGs being better if they are open ended. But personally I dont like that. I didnt like FFX-2 as much as the other FFs because there were so many quests you had to do apart from the main game that felt like a chore to do. All the cool customes had to be quested. Thats good in a way, but I like a game where everything is in the main plot. I like grand epic games that are very long and arent weigghed down with a lot of mini games and sub plots. I havent played many games like that, but for me FFIX is my all time favorite RPG because you could go very far and become very poweful by just enjoying the main plot line. You didnt have to worry about other quests or things like that. Dark Cloud 2 had many mini games, but none took away from the main linear plot. For me, I like RPGs that are linear with a clear consise way to go. I like knowing where im headed, and who i have to fight. Golden sun is kind of like that. like I said before, I like grand epic RPGs that focus more on the main plot itself rather than what Chocobo breeds with which.

 

[Raesvelg]

Role playing is less about being able to twink out your character (referencing WSMs post there), and more about being able to look at things from the perpective of your character. The problem with MMORPGs is that they're inherently static. With tons of people, there can't be a dominating overall storyline, because not everyone is at the same point in the game at a given time. So immersing yourself in the plot is a lot harder, and changing the world as a whole to accomodate shifts in the plot is extremely difficult.

 

[Pascal]

I understand everything you guys are saying about RPGs being better if they are open ended. But personally I dont like that. I didnt like FFX-2 as much as the other FFs because there were so many quests you had to do apart from the main game that felt like a chore to do. All the cool customes had to be quested. Thats good in a way, but I like a game where everything is in the main plot. I like grand epic games that are very long and arent weigghed down with a lot of mini games and sub plots. I havent played many games like that, but for me FFIX is my all time favorite RPG because you could go very far and become very poweful by just enjoying the main plot line. You didnt have to worry about other quests or things like that. Dark Cloud 2 had many mini games, but none took away from the main linear plot. For me, I like RPGs that are linear with a clear consise way to go. I like knowing where im headed, and who i have to fight. Golden sun is kind of like that. like I said before, I like grand epic RPGs that focus more on the main plot itself rather than what Chocobo breeds with which.

The problem there is RPG should not be linier, Action Adventures are. Game publishers keep slapping RPG onto those games when they are not. An example of this Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, just because the game used D&D rule sets, they called it an RPG, but in there own description of the game, they call it an Action Adventure . Another good example is how many people call Diablo an MMORPG. It’s an Online RPG, there is a difference.

Maybe due to the fact I grew up actually role playing and played computer RPG before we had nice graphics (MUDs and Door Games); I have a really high standard for the content of games. Back then content was everything and making a linier RPG would never fly.

One of my all time favorite games was LORD (Legend of the Red Dragon). Though still limited compared to some of the MUDs out there. Its a good example of the freedom that can be made into an online game. I pretty much judge all modern RPG based on FF1, and thus far none live up to it.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_adventure_game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_role-playing_game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game

 

[Anderithe]

Developement Costs

 

[Pascal]

Ecks, some how I missed your post. I'm going to have to check Morrowind out. You must have played a MUD or two. You see what I am looking for in a game!

 

[Rorschach]

Just wondering... I thought that FF1 was linear. Like the most linear game for nintendo. Basicly go from one place to another and kill the bad guy till you get to the main bad guy and kill him and win. lol then again I never played it so I really dont know.

 

[Raesvelg]

Pretty much every FF game ever made is frighteningly linear, to tell the truth. The Dragon Warrior games (or whatever you prefer to call them) a bit less so, but that's the basic theme of all electronic RPGs. A single pre-packaged major quest, with a variety of subquests along the way. Rinse, repeat, upgrade your graphics.

We're not really at the level of computing power that would be required to make a truly self-evolving game yet, I don't think.

 

[Pascal]

All games even including pen and paper tent to have a linier story line that brings you to the end (or endings in some games), but what shouldn’t be linier is how you get there. In FFXI all of the games main story line is done in missions. There is no secret event which triggers the next set of events. The game forces them on you in order. The only real choose they give us that has any effect on the game, is which city we are a citizen of.

Let’s take the rank 3 mission for example. We are given the chose to go to one town first, and then the other, but either way you end up fighting an identical dragon with his eye ball friend. Who gives the identical story that another great war is coming.

A better design would have been to create 3 different monsters to fight. After defeating the monster you chose, you are given a particular piece of the story that leads you to the Great War is coming.

(I’m making this stuff up)
Monster 1 may tell you what role the Crags will play in the Great War.
Monster 2 may tell a great evil Shadow Lord is coming to start another Great War.
Monster 3 may tell you how the Beast men are searching for a crystal of great power.

Now because you chose to fight a certain monster, you are not able to go and fight the other 2 (with the same character). You will have to learn about these things during mini quests or by inter acting with other players.

Player A: Will know the Crags were created to seal away an evil force, but will not know that the evil Force is the Shadow Lord.
Player B: Will know the Shadow Lord was defeated, but will not know the Crags are how he was defeated or how he plans to return.
Player C: Will know this crystal is a key to controlling great power, but will not know about how it interacts with the Crags and that the great power is the force to either set the Shadow Lord free or to entrap him.


The more branching you create like this the more involved you become in the direction of the game. While at some point the game will bring all the braches back together for the end of the game, you have progressed though the game by controlling your character and making chooses for him as you would in real life rather than the game telling you were to go.

 

[Ecks]

Ecks, some how I missed your post. I'm going to have to check Morrowind out. You must have played a MUD or two. You see what I am looking for in a game!

Heh, yes I did have my share of mudding. It's what I did before I got into mmo's. Did a few really good muds, nothing huge, but they were enjoyable and RP friendly as well as PK friendly (to an extent). I pretty much honed a lot of RP "skills" if you will, while I played those. And while I became a well known figure in one, and my stories were pretty popular. I worked with the Imms (Immortals aka. owners/helpers/coders) in doing some live RP wich changed the world for a while. I had my own special area, sorta. There was a sign added to one place that I myself made, an the Imms plugged it in there for me.

And I was able to create a clan based on part of my background story. It all was very nice for a while. But all good things come to an end, and my Mud life faded away as I started playing MMOs. Which essentially are the same kind of thing as MUDs, just more complex and ofcourse visual instead of text based.

Thing is, I love linear games, if they're done well with a good story and likeable characters. Like I already stated, its almost no different than reading a good book. Infact its quite a bit more interactive. Sure, it comes at a slight loss of imagination/creativity on our part. We don't have to think about what a character looks like when he/she swings their weapon, its right there for us to see. Though that doesn't mean we cant enjoy the creativity and though that is put into these characters that we're enjoying playing as.

RPG's can be linier, infact.. all of them are in some way or another, they all have a definate beginning and definate ending (games with multiple scenario endings still end, those just add replay value). Even in Morrowind while you can figuratively "go outside the box", there is one guy who gives you quests that advance the stories plot, he's essentially the linier part of the game. If all you do in the game are the quests he sends you on, you'll end up beating the game a lot sooner than you would if you explored the huge world (and I mean.. it is freaking huge) inbetween doing his quests at your lesiur.

The thing I like about MMO's is that there is a definate beginning, that is the first time to log into one and the only time they have a definate ending is when you decided to quit and no longer play. There is no definate ending if you continue to play.

Missions in FFXI are just that, missions. The are there to advance the story within the game and make the player aware of what the world they are in is all about. If they didn't give some rewards only certain players, like myself would only still consider doing them to advance the story. However by doing the missions in FFXI you do gain rewards. For rank missions you get money after raising ever rank, and at rank 5 you can ride the airships, which beats the heck out of walking and chocoboing from nation to nation. Rewards also consist of being able to buy conquest gear, some of which is really good, and some is plain novelty.

In Zilart missions more is expanded on from the rank missions, and the rewards are bein able to go to places like sky, and the ability to fight the gods, and so forth. I can't personally comment on what else becomes available as I havent completed them all or really looked up the ZM missions much.

In CoP missions even more story of Vana'Diel is revealed. Rewards consist of being able to enter the Tav'(tab) Safehold, then eventually being able to use its much less cluttered with people AH. And eventually area's within Sea which hold their own mysteries much like Sky once did.

And you can count on future expansions to add more areas and more missions to keep us satisfied and further build on the world within FFXI known as Vana'Diel. Essentially doing the same thing every MMO does, but in it's own special way.

 

[Tyran]

I think the Tetra Master should be incorp. in FFXI (after all it comes with the game).That would add a little more dimension to the game. In saying that here is how I would do that. You have many ways of acquiring cards One is to buy packs of cards as an option for your guild points (also promotes crafting), or you could just strait out buy packs from a NPC in your region. The Third option is to buy packs with Conquest points. Option four choco. digging yields cards, Fishing, Mining, logging.

Ok so you have your ways to but the packs now on the cards of course you need to make some rare to deter the gilbyers from loading up, also for more of a challenge. Second cards can only be traded no AH. Third have tournaments like ballista (got a lot of options here).

With this you can go one on one (risk of a card @ random), or city vs. city (every one playing for winning city receives a rare card in addition to winner of tournament winning <insert object>(leaping boots for example)).

So you want dimention add a hobby into a hobby (im sure 80% of you have played Magic the gathering now you wanna talk about game time add Wizards of the coast with SE......can you say MONOPOLY). I whould be happy with Tetra Master as well....sigh...