RPG's are not what they used to be

B1nary

B1nary

New member
Hey People, so I have been thinking about rpg's and why they seem to suck more and more lately, the problem is eye candy.

The improvement of graphics over the years seems to be indirectly proportional to how much depth you put into characters and story line.

I rarely find myself engrossed into a rpg lately,what was the Last rpg you played that has a good story and character development that just sucked you in for hours on end, For me the last decent one i played must have been dragon age 1.

more and more It seems that indie rpg's might actually start bringing back proper characters and plots.
 
think the last RPG that I actually enjoyed, and had a slight addiction to, was Kingdoms of Amalur
 
Skyrim.
I really enjoyed Risen 1, which admittedly is an acquired taste, I found to be really good.
I didn't feel that Dragon Age was that interesting with the story in fact I found that I cared little for what actually happened in a similar fashion to Sacred 2.
 
Dark/Demon's souls? Xenoblade chronicles?
As more and more great RPG's get mentioned your argument is becoming more and more moot. :confused:
 
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I am sorry, but if one more person calls Skyrim an RPG I am going to start stabbing kittens with rusted spoons. Skyrim is not and RPG. It is an action game with very light RPG elements.

Fallout 1 and 2 are RPGs. Hell, Fallout New Vegas is an RPG. Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment are RPGs.

Skyrim, however, is not an RPG. I'm not saying it's a bad game, but it's not and RPG.
 
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Graal said:
I am sorry, but if one more person calls Skyrim an RPG I am going to start stabbing kittens with rusted spoons. Skyrim is not and RPG. It is an action game with very light RPG elements.

Fallout 1 and 2 are RPGs. Hell, Fallout New Vegas is an RPG. Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment are RPGs.

Skyrim, however, is not an RPG. I'm not saying it's a bad game, but it's not and RPG.
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its a mixture of genres, but for sake of argument the rpg'ness in it is enough for this thread
 
Mass Effect 1 (although probably not as full blown RPG as the others), Dragon Age 1 and Witcher 2.

Skyrim and Fallout I feel are too big in the sense that the story seems to jump around so much... or rather, the side-quests are too distracting, that I later don't really care about the main story though. The three I mentioned above, although they do have side quests, the main story has more focus and the games do have better endings.
 
The Witcher series (obviously), Drakensang (very underrated) and while it doesn't have the best story and character's, Dragons Dogma is one of the better RPG's of this generation. Awesome combat and really awesome character classes ( Mystic Knight, Magick Archer, etc) and of course the giant beasts you get to take down. Also really loved both Fallout 3 and New Vegas and, unlike Skyrim, I consider them both proper RPG's. As far as ARPG's go Path of Exile and Torchlight 2 stand out for me. Van Hellsing and Grim Dawn also look very decent.
 
Witcher 2, Deus Ex (semi RPG), Fallout NV are all solid RPG's (ok, maybe even Mass Effect). And I have high hopes for Project Infinity and Torment Numeria.

I don't think it's really about some inversely proportional relationship between graphics and story. It's more how the story is delivered and what gaming audience a developer is targeting.

The majority rules when it comes to the target markets the game publishing houses focus on. Unfortunately, the gamer who likes a complex story that you have to truly engage with in order to appreciate is now part of a niche market.

Niche markets are for small, focussed companies and developers. And for a long time now those developers had no way of reaching their audience without the help of big publishers. This left them with no choice but to sign over their creative soul.

When gaming started appealing to the increased number of people around 10 years ago publishers capitalized on that by funding the production of content that I'd only describe as bubblegum games. That's all well and good, everyone likes a bit of easy fun, but the people who really enjoyed the complexities of gaming and storytelling were left behind.

As an experiment, ask your friends who only like games like CoD (or even Skyrim) to really try and experience older or more complex RPG titles. Most would call it boring and point out things like "endless text to read", "no voice acting", "there's so little fun stuff like combat", "too much stuff to remember". Baldur's Gate II & ToB together had over 500,000 words of conversation. That's more words than most trilogies!

Proper characters and plots stem from having a good creative team. The accountants at the publishing house don't really make for good writers, though. CoD and similar follow a forumula. You can break down the game, and create it's sequels by filling in certain blanks. Selling something that's a wholly creative work will always be a risk, because by definition there's little or no previous evidence of it's success. Publishing houses don't like risk. There are a lot of really talented writers in the games industry, and if they were just given some more creative freedom I believe you'd get the characters and plots you want.
 
simon said:
its a mixture of genres, but for sake of argument the rpg'ness in it is enough for this thread
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It actually really isn't. Skyrim is not an RPG in the same way that a mini cooper with Ferrari rims is not a Ferrari.

There's no meaningful interaction with the game world. No meaningful or long-term repercussions to your decisions and there's basically no decisions. The player has no narrative agency. Gameplay relies almost entirely on player skill and not on character skill/attributes.

The only RPG elements that Skyrim contains is character progression, and character progression alone is not indicative of an RPG. Skyrim is an open-world action game with character progression. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but it is not an RPG.

Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Wizardy and even the two Witcher games are RPGs. Even Bioware's games, shit as they are, can be considered RPGs. Skyrim can't.
 
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Graal said:
I am sorry, but if one more person calls Skyrim an RPG I am going to start stabbing kittens with rusted spoons. Skyrim is not and RPG. It is an action game with very light RPG elements.

Fallout 1 and 2 are RPGs. Hell, Fallout New Vegas is an RPG. Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment are RPGs.

Skyrim, however, is not an RPG. I'm not saying it's a bad game, but it's not and RPG.
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Skyrims plot and characters where as shallow as the graves of everyone you mindlessly slaughter in the game
 
Graal said:
It actually really isn't. Skyrim is not an RPG in the same way that a mini cooper with Ferrari rims is not a Ferrari.

There's no meaningful interaction with the game world. No meaningful or long-term repercussions to your decisions and there's basically no decisions. The player has no narrative agency. Gameplay relies almost entirely on player skill and not on character skill/attributes.

The only RPG elements that Skyrim contains is character progression, and character progression alone is not indicative of an RPG. Skyrim is an open-world action game with character progression. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but it is not an RPG.

Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Wizardy and even the two Witcher games are RPGs. Even Bioware's games, shit as they are, can be considered RPGs. Skyrim can't.
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As much as I agree with your assessment of the attributes that Skyrim does and does not possess, aren't integral requirements for the RPG genre. An RPG simply requires that you play the role of the character.. And that is where Skyrim gives you the most room. Since the character development is so versatile, you can roll any character you want!
 
Avatar said:
As much as I agree with your assessment of the attributes that Skyrim does and does not possess, aren't integral requirements for the RPG genre. An RPG simply requires that you play the role of the character.. And that is where Skyrim gives you the most room. Since the character development is so versatile, you can roll any character you want!
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Was just about to say something along those lines.
Wiki definition of it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_playing_game

In comparison is it fare to say Fifa 12 is a sports game when it has features in game that pertain more to management sim as well where you can build a team based on their current playing skills etc irl.

Thus Skyrim is an RPG with Action etc etc.
 
JP'S said:
I'm not a MASSIVE rpg player... But Witcher 2 was BY FAR one of my favorite games. Ever.
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Good for you! You have excellent taste. :p

Witcher 3 looks like it is going to be exceptionally good as well and I also can't wait to hear more info (and see some gameplay) of both it and Cyberpunk; haven't heard/seen anything new about that for a while now.
 
Avatar said:
As much as I agree with your assessment of the attributes that Skyrim does and does not possess, aren't integral requirements for the RPG genre. An RPG simply requires that you play the role of the character.. And that is where Skyrim gives you the most room. Since the character development is so versatile, you can roll any character you want!
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No, that's a very common misconception. Role-playing games are about more than roles. If playing a role was the criteria for being an RPG, then 90% of games are roleplaying games. CoD lets you play the role of a soldier. Halo lets you play the role of master chief. Saints Row lets you play the role of a mob boss. Far Cry 3 lets you play the role of a 20-something on a pirate-infested island. The Saboteur lets you play the role of a saboteur. Prince of Persia lets you play the role of an acrobatic prince. Yet none of those are RPG games.

RPG games rely heavily on player agency for their classification. So far, the player agency in Skyrim is incredibly limited. You can change your character. That's the extent of player agency in Skyrim. Narrative agency is non-existent, because you have very little to no effect on the game's narrative. The instrumental agency (the way the world reacts to the player) is also very limited and also almost non-existent. There is no choice or consequence, no far-reaching, significant repercussions to actions and the player's actions don't alter the game world.

If you added guns to Skyrim, you'd essentially have an open-world CoD game with character progression.

Skyrim is an action game with RPG elements, but it is not an RPG.
 
Weren't all games created with the idea of playing a role of some sort. Thus yes all games, well most, are in fact RPG's.
I think it is more the progression of what an RPG game is that has changed compared to games of yesteryear.

Btw I would consider Borderlands to be an action game with RPG elements in, Skyrim is certainly more RPG'ish than Borderlands.
 
Wlad said:
Good for you! You have excellent taste. :p

Witcher 3 looks like it is going to be exceptionally good as well and I also can't wait to hear more info (and see some gameplay) of both it and Cyberpunk; haven't heard/seen anything new about that for a while now.
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If its going to be half as good as the Witcher 2 I'm sold :D
 
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