Arr Pee Gee
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
Torchlight, like Diablo 2, Titan Quest, Loki and so on already had a nice name before everyone started calling them action-RPGs.
Hack'n'slash games. Devil May Cry 3 and Diablo 2 are different only because Diablo 2 has more characters, possible combinations of skills and you gather equipment, not only souls/points to buy new skills and upgrade abilities.
Hack'n'slash games. Devil May Cry 3 and Diablo 2 are different only because Diablo 2 has more characters, possible combinations of skills and you gather equipment, not only souls/points to buy new skills and upgrade abilities.
I would actually go as far as to say none of those are really RPGs at all... the only reason they're called that is because they have heavy fantasy elements and an upgrade system... but in that case, you could call Dead Space an RPG.Abedeus said:
Diablo 2 has a crapload of itemization and skill customization, much moreso than just about any jRPG I've ever played. Nobody would doubt that, for instance, Final Fantasy 7 is an RPG, but Diablo 2 had more skills and a ridiculously large amount of pre-determined items (and then all the randomly generated ones.) If Diablo 2 isn't an RPG, then nothing else is.ProfessorLayton said:
So nothing else is. Why are you judging this based on itemization? Fallout 2 has less items than Diablo 2 does, and yet Fallout 2 IS an RPG, in that it lets you define characters however you see fit. Also, it does a good job with letting you do what you want with the world, rather than having that shaped by the game. Customization does not an RPG make. It's what you can do with every aspect of the game. Such as in my favorite example of Fallout: You can slaughter whole towns, or leave them alive. Do certain quests and not others, and the town may be gone by the end of the game. There's one area where, if you're playing a brains type, you can actually introduce crop rotation. Diablo always felt like there was one solution to each problem: Kill X, Y, or Z. I didn't wanna kill, and I was forced to. A true RPG offers multiple solutions to each problem, and then, if the problem is far-reaching enough, allows you to contemplate the consequences.Enigmers said:
Point being, everything in an RPG should be down to you, and not decided for you.
Edited because I had more to add.
I'd call Diablo, Torchlight and their ilk "dungeoneering" games. Diablo tends to have a story to tell (it's Blizzard, after all) but the nuts and bolts of these games aren't the story, it's the dungeon exploration, discovery of loot and clicking monsters to death.
Mass Effect, KotOR and Dragon Age are much more "storytelling" games. The story is the crux of the experience.
Just my $0.02 on it.
Mass Effect, KotOR and Dragon Age are much more "storytelling" games. The story is the crux of the experience.
Just my $0.02 on it.
Interesting that almost all of those things appear in other genre games under the proviso of "bringing in RPG elements". Is this what RPG means? A collective noun for a vague list of game mechanics and tropes? Frankly, I wouldn't be unhappy with that. I'm struggling to think of another solution that's both accurate and practical. And it seems to fit with how we've been using it all along...
I think it's what it means now. Because games that hybridize with RPGs, such as Fallout 3 or Deus Ex succeed, the market thinks that every game should be hybridized with RPGs to include an upgrade system or choice mechanic or something. Hence, now all games have "RPG elements" and thus, the original term means somewhat less.Break said:
RPG is not a genre. A game can have RPG elements the same way it can sport strategy ones. It's merely a tool or a trope, if you will, for developers to add depth to the gameplay. The major element of the RPG is tangible advancement, which can involve any aspect of the player character, their environment and other denizens in the world. This is why games such as first-person shooters generally don't qualify since the player never grows or never gains "fake" experience that boosts their performance in combat.
The important question, apparently, is how satisfying a conclusion this is. I mean, when the long-running issue has been "what comes under the category of RPG", how happy would a person be with an answer of "mechanics come under the category of RPG, not games"?TetsuoKaneda said:
But then, I've always been opposed to how genres are used, most of the time. People often treat them as slots to fit games into, rather than descriptive tags to inform and recommend. Besides, these days, games are almost invariably more than just round pegs, and don't fit through the round holes quite like they used to.
I think the biggest problem is that there is no consensus about what an RPG is. A term is useless if it has no meaning, and that's exactly what's going on with "RPG". Some people claim it's all about roleplaying (gee, I wonder why?), while others claim it's all about leveling up. Some would call Fallout 3 a shooting game with a few RPG elements, others call it a first-person RPG. And so on.
Everyone has a very vague idea of what an RPG is (in many cases heavily influenced by game marketing and advertisement; if a game is marketed as an RPG, or containing RPG elements, it must be true, right?), but so far I haven't seen anyone come up with a satisfactory definition of the genre.
Other genres are more clearly defined. Everyone knows an FPS when they see one. An RTS is pretty obvious as well. A sports game? Easy. Racing? Sure. Platforming? It has a bit of crossover with what's commonly known as "action-adventure" (but "action-adventure" is another stupid genre name, if you ask me), but almost anyone will be able to give a good description of it. Beat 'em up and fighting games? As long as you're aware of the difference between the two, it's pretty obvious.
But RPGs? It's become so muddled by the video games industry and its fans that it is now pretty much meaningless.
Everyone has a very vague idea of what an RPG is (in many cases heavily influenced by game marketing and advertisement; if a game is marketed as an RPG, or containing RPG elements, it must be true, right?), but so far I haven't seen anyone come up with a satisfactory definition of the genre.
Other genres are more clearly defined. Everyone knows an FPS when they see one. An RTS is pretty obvious as well. A sports game? Easy. Racing? Sure. Platforming? It has a bit of crossover with what's commonly known as "action-adventure" (but "action-adventure" is another stupid genre name, if you ask me), but almost anyone will be able to give a good description of it. Beat 'em up and fighting games? As long as you're aware of the difference between the two, it's pretty obvious.
But RPGs? It's become so muddled by the video games industry and its fans that it is now pretty much meaningless.
definitely have to differenciate LevelUp games-LUG(like Borderlands and Xmen origins wolverine) from the term RPG.
Edit after reading previous comments: RPG should stand for games with characted defined gameplay and world that reacts to player, as in Deus ex, Fallout 3 or alpha protocol. shit other than equip has to advance.
comment 15:shame on other games than sims is one of rare games with complete player control over characters(begins with creation).
Edit after reading previous comments: RPG should stand for games with characted defined gameplay and world that reacts to player, as in Deus ex, Fallout 3 or alpha protocol. shit other than equip has to advance.
people are stupid by defalut for their whole life, you didn't notice?.Hurr Durr Derp said:
comment 15:shame on other games than sims is one of rare games with complete player control over characters(begins with creation).
Is it Ambrose Bierce time?
The best two categories for games are action game and strategy game. Not much use for pinning down what an RPG is but you can split RPGs into two groups.
1. Action games with a good excuse for being bad action games.
2. Strategy games with a good excuse for being sucky, broken strategy games.
These two definitions cover pretty much all video games that feel the need to call themselves RPGs.
The best two categories for games are action game and strategy game. Not much use for pinning down what an RPG is but you can split RPGs into two groups.
1. Action games with a good excuse for being bad action games.
2. Strategy games with a good excuse for being sucky, broken strategy games.
These two definitions cover pretty much all video games that feel the need to call themselves RPGs.
Aye because YOU should be able to well, play a role. This is, make decisions like the character you have in mind would. Thats, for me, the one and only definition.TetsuoKaneda said:
To choose between more strength or more intelligence each level, may support the possibility to let your character work in the game mechanics like he should, not that diablo supports the concept of an intelligent warrior that only fights if the situation and his own philosophy allow him to, but games like the mentioned fallout are a very good example. you can choose to take the brute road or the talking approach, you can rob everyone or give them the stuff they really need for free.
Shoving numbers is not what makes a RPG what it should be, hell there are some good RPGs out there which don't include any numbers or math at all! believe it or not.
How about CBSTRPESCG? Character-Building-Story-Telling-Role-Playing-Exploring-Strategy-Choice Game. Isn't that a mouthful. Then you just subtract letters/letter pairs as necessary.
Personally, I've always considered games with the RPG tag meant that the core of the gameplay was "character building" that was either unavoidable or would make the game otherwise impossible. Then a good RPG would also have a story, and a great one would have some choice involved. But that's me.
Personally, I've always considered games with the RPG tag meant that the core of the gameplay was "character building" that was either unavoidable or would make the game otherwise impossible. Then a good RPG would also have a story, and a great one would have some choice involved. But that's me.
I thought games like Diablo and that awful game, Titan's Quest, already had the label "Dungeon crawler". I think that's what it should say straight on the box. All that matters in those games is "powergrinding". What choices you do only changes how you kill monsters, or if you're going to survive or not. Death in those games is trivial anyway, all the way until harder difficulties. But the equation remains: total character strength + button mashing = win.
JRPGs share alot of these elements. But the biggest similarity is how your interaction and the story are two different parts of the same game. It might have been different with JRPGs in the past, but i guess with major cinematics being such a big deal the last decade, your actions, besides combat, don't matter at all.
I think Shamus dealt with how charactervoicing was destructive to the whole roleplaying experience before in another article, and i find this true. The cost is just too huge for it
to work. Although Bioware wants to make us think otherwise.
JRPGs share alot of these elements. But the biggest similarity is how your interaction and the story are two different parts of the same game. It might have been different with JRPGs in the past, but i guess with major cinematics being such a big deal the last decade, your actions, besides combat, don't matter at all.
I think Shamus dealt with how charactervoicing was destructive to the whole roleplaying experience before in another article, and i find this true. The cost is just too huge for it
to work. Although Bioware wants to make us think otherwise.
This. I've been both a tabletop gamer and a video gamer since the early 80s. Since then, I've seen the video game industry and media consistently apply the RPG label to wholly inappropriate titles, generally because of at least one of the following:More Fun To Compute said:
1) A levelling-up mechanic (even though most pen & paper systems outside of D&D/d20 haven't used it since the early 80s)
2) A sword & sorcery setting or premise.
The earliest console RPGs were linear as hell: You rarely had any choice in the character(s) you played, you definitely had no control over how they improved as they levelled up. Weapon, armour and spell choice were almost completely linear: e.g., you used the Iron Sword, until you could afford the Silver Sword, then the Gold, etc. (for some reason, soft precious metals made for better weapons than steel ones). The "story" was a linked linear series of fetch quests, rarely giving you the opportunity to choose which order you would engage the quests in or how you'd pursue them. Mega Man was less linear in that regard.
The term was poorly applied from the beginning, so it's really no surprise it still is.