The first Mass Effect was barely an RPG either, ME2 just stripped it even more for the 360 audience.
Gears of Mass Effect
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
Don't worry, ME2 is an RPG. Everything can be a stupid RPG nowadays.
In this case a RPTPS.
I like the recently coined "third person looter" and "roleplaying shooter" much better. Please interchange "game" with "RPG" as often as possible to speed up the process.
In this case a RPTPS.
I like the recently coined "third person looter" and "roleplaying shooter" much better. Please interchange "game" with "RPG" as often as possible to speed up the process.
Level system does not make an RPG.
Look at the history of video game RPGs. For example, let's go back to Final Fantasy 1 on the NES.
The whole leveling, static menu battle system was in place because games of that time either had to choose compelling story or gameplay. True, there were games that combined both (Ninja Gaiden for example) however, those were rather rare. At least, rarely done well on those old systems.
Now, however, because of this forced history, the RPG has been labelled as a level grinding game, the only aspect making such an RPG meaning a complex system of levelling a character, and calling it character development.
Don't get me wrong, I love level systems in my RPGs, however so few games have well-implemented ones, i.e. ones that affect things outside of the direct gameplay. I would have loved to see extra scenes in Mass Effect where if you were a biotic, or especially a vanguard, you might get some slack from characters like Jack or the evil Asari companion mocking your weaker abilities. Or maybe if you played as a tech character, you could take the place of Tali or Legion in hacking the terminal to open a door in the final mission. Only a couple of really basic examples, however that's the kind of thing I'd like to see for a GOOD level and class system.
However, the RP aspect of RPG came from having an epic story the player could follow through. The number crunching systems of old RPGs were more of a symptom rather than a defining characteristic. It's awful to think that people won't call Mass Effect an RPG because it has heavy Third Person Shooter aspects, despite having a level system, inventory system and the most important part, an epic story. And unlike a lot of games that are laughably called RPGs where your character's class, level, abilities etc. would do NOTHING and you as a player have no input on the character's role in the world, Mass Effect has that. Mass Effect 1 to a greater extent, but ME2 still has it, just in a more simplified role, making the game accessible to those who aren't big fans of fiddling with level systems and massive inventories filled with marginally better items.
Look at the history of video game RPGs. For example, let's go back to Final Fantasy 1 on the NES.
The whole leveling, static menu battle system was in place because games of that time either had to choose compelling story or gameplay. True, there were games that combined both (Ninja Gaiden for example) however, those were rather rare. At least, rarely done well on those old systems.
Now, however, because of this forced history, the RPG has been labelled as a level grinding game, the only aspect making such an RPG meaning a complex system of levelling a character, and calling it character development.
Don't get me wrong, I love level systems in my RPGs, however so few games have well-implemented ones, i.e. ones that affect things outside of the direct gameplay. I would have loved to see extra scenes in Mass Effect where if you were a biotic, or especially a vanguard, you might get some slack from characters like Jack or the evil Asari companion mocking your weaker abilities. Or maybe if you played as a tech character, you could take the place of Tali or Legion in hacking the terminal to open a door in the final mission. Only a couple of really basic examples, however that's the kind of thing I'd like to see for a GOOD level and class system.
However, the RP aspect of RPG came from having an epic story the player could follow through. The number crunching systems of old RPGs were more of a symptom rather than a defining characteristic. It's awful to think that people won't call Mass Effect an RPG because it has heavy Third Person Shooter aspects, despite having a level system, inventory system and the most important part, an epic story. And unlike a lot of games that are laughably called RPGs where your character's class, level, abilities etc. would do NOTHING and you as a player have no input on the character's role in the world, Mass Effect has that. Mass Effect 1 to a greater extent, but ME2 still has it, just in a more simplified role, making the game accessible to those who aren't big fans of fiddling with level systems and massive inventories filled with marginally better items.
I quite enjoy both ends of the spectrum, from "Spreadsheety" RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age all the way through to more "Ooh, pretty 'splosions" type games like Call Of Duty and Gears of War. One thing I particularly enjoy about games like Dragon Age is the story and interaction between characters so I'm not entirely against mixing the genres up for a bit of a different experience. I will admit though in the more complicated RPGs I have a tendency to play the game in such a manner that I don't necessarily reach the "ultimate" character build, for example defeating Darth Malak in KOTOR as my light side jedi, was one of the hardest things I've ever done in a game and took me absolutely ages, because my character was massively underpowered, but I did enjoy it for the challenge.
I agree, for the most part, because even though the inventory system in the first game was a bit too much, the level up system is a joke, an like some others have mentioned the level 30 level cap also feels a bit weak.
Good article, but it's this part that caught my eye. Mass Effect 1 had the same gameplay, only executed with poorer controls and dodgier gameplay mechanics. Essentially, the shooting part isn't different in the sequel, only better done. Both are cover-based 3rd person shooters.Shamus Young said:
Beyond that, as a number-crunching system-exploiter I still agree that this direction isn't a bad thing and I enjoyed (and am still enjoying) ME2 quite a bit. However, I'd preffer a mix of the ME1 and ME2 mechanics, both for loot and stats. A happy medium that's not to simplified, but not too cluttered. That way, Bioware might give something to the RPG fans to play around with while keeping the game accessible to everyone who doesn't want to spend hours reading guides on GameFAQs...
Conversation choices that are ultimately meaningless; leveling system that is ultimately meaningless; combat system that is ultimately meaningless; sandbox environment that is actually linear. Yes, sign me up for these because they put the RPG in RPG.[/sarcasm]
Gears of Mass Effect, indeed. I know it doesn't appeal to the hardcore RP crowd. At least, it shouldn't. If you want a truly meaningful conversation, let the player type/say(speech recognition) their own lines and give it some damned real consequences. Just because all roads lead to Rome doesn't mean that all roads have to be the same road with different conversation options.
Gears of Mass Effect, indeed. I know it doesn't appeal to the hardcore RP crowd. At least, it shouldn't. If you want a truly meaningful conversation, let the player type/say(speech recognition) their own lines and give it some damned real consequences. Just because all roads lead to Rome doesn't mean that all roads have to be the same road with different conversation options.
Seriously, this needs to die. This needs to be shot in the back of the head and buried in a shallow grave right next to quicktime events and minigames.Onyx Oblivion said:
Yes, in other "role-playing" games I spent 80% of my time in the character creation screen tweaking the eyebrows of my elf while simultaneously looking up online every possible min-max strategy to squeeze the most out of my cross-class build and blaze through the game with a hawk's eye on my experience bar and a 37-point itinerary for gearing up. I need a game whose expressed purpose is to challenge me to find just how quickly I can break the game without technically cheating!
And the other 20% of the time I complained about the ridiculous gimmicky cliches they had in the plot, as if anybody cared about that shit, right? Everybody knows the best way to play an RPG is to know every plot twist ahead of time by reading GameFAQs or thatgame.wikia so you can totally plan ahead for it, down to spreadsheets about exactly when to say what to who so you can dance through intricate diplomatic relations with your compatriots for great bonuses without the bother of actually listening to what they said.
Yeah, that totally needs to die. Every game that allows you to play a Str 30 Cha 6 character without repercussion needs to die. Every game where the "role-play" aspect is inextricably tied with doing exactly the sort of shit a real life DM would take one look at and say "Hell no. You try that and by the grace of god I'll kill you and end this campaign faster than you can say 'railroaded,'" needs to die.
While I agree with the majority of your points, I think defining games by narrative style would be problematic at best. Player's game preferences generally do center on gameplay mechanics; and these mechanics are what make games games. If a game is 100% narrative content, it becomes a movie.Eclectic Dreck said:
An FPS and a 'traditional' spreadsheet-style RPG might both have a very similar plots; a post-apocalyptic setting with a messianic main character. I can guarantee that not all players are going to appreciate both games, however. Classing games purely by narrative seems potentially fallacious.
I think this is awesome, the RPG genre is really branching out and blending, evolving. I generally see RPGs as mainly games where you can build and develop your characters story. so it is nice to see these being integrated with other entertaining genre elements.
I never figured out all that "saving rolls" and "+3 Dex" crap...I just went in and picked the coolest-looking weapon to kill the enemy with.
I didn't like the leveling system of Mass Effect 2
I shall now clarify.
I am a big fan of tailoring your character to suit your needs, especially in RPGs, and stripping down the Mass Effect experience to make a fairly generic shooter takced on to a deep and involved storyline threw this out of the window. It didn't matter if I wanted a character who could pick locks, charm her way out of situations, decrypt complicated compute systems and hit a bullseye from 100m away. The game gave me all that ability, then told me 'All you need to do is make yourself better at fighting.'
What if don't want to be better at fighting? What if one of the things I enjoyed about Mass Effect is the feeling that I am playing it differently from a friend who loves running and gunning? It feels much more like I'm crafting my own experience when instead of just choosing whether I'm a badass shoote or a badass biotic, I'm choosing whether I'm a badass negotiator or a badass fighter.
For all the talk of crafting your own experience and character, Mass Effect actually felt so much mor linear in terms of character leveling that I felt like I was having the character made for me, along their lines, not mine. While I know this sounds odd, because it's always their character, the leveling always felt like my choice, not Bioware's.
It's still a fantastic game, but it's not quite as much my charactr as she was the last time, and that makes the story harder to connect with.
I shall now clarify.
I am a big fan of tailoring your character to suit your needs, especially in RPGs, and stripping down the Mass Effect experience to make a fairly generic shooter takced on to a deep and involved storyline threw this out of the window. It didn't matter if I wanted a character who could pick locks, charm her way out of situations, decrypt complicated compute systems and hit a bullseye from 100m away. The game gave me all that ability, then told me 'All you need to do is make yourself better at fighting.'
What if don't want to be better at fighting? What if one of the things I enjoyed about Mass Effect is the feeling that I am playing it differently from a friend who loves running and gunning? It feels much more like I'm crafting my own experience when instead of just choosing whether I'm a badass shoote or a badass biotic, I'm choosing whether I'm a badass negotiator or a badass fighter.
For all the talk of crafting your own experience and character, Mass Effect actually felt so much mor linear in terms of character leveling that I felt like I was having the character made for me, along their lines, not mine. While I know this sounds odd, because it's always their character, the leveling always felt like my choice, not Bioware's.
It's still a fantastic game, but it's not quite as much my charactr as she was the last time, and that makes the story harder to connect with.
You are entirely correct. I would not suggest classification based on narrative until video games consistantly and regularly produce games with fundamentally different types of stories.Sentox6 said:
My only assertion is that the current naming structure works in such a way that we classify games based upon major mechanical or technical aspects, and this structure is rapidly leading us to the point where the taxinomy is being incresingly obtuse. Mass Effect 2, if classified without respect to clarity and brevity, could be called a Third Person Shooter(The interface mechanic)/Adventure(Dialogue trees)/Role Playing Game(Linear stastical progression of the character). As more and more games cross the genre lines, it seems to me if we want clarity in classification without becomming too granular, we need a different way to name our categories.
As I said, classifying based upon the overall narrative is only suitable when games actually start having different narratives in general. Classifying based upon the current System of Categories is increasingly flawed:
Action - A game wherein the focus of the mechanics are action oriented. Story is not required, simply consistant and fair mechanics.
First Person - A game where the player primarily interacts with the world as though they are looking through the "eyes" of their avatar.
Third Person - A game where the player primarily interacts with the world as though an invisble camerman follows their avatar.
Shooter - A game where the player routinely interacts with they world with a projectile of some kind.
Puzzle - A game where the player solves any of a variety of the basic puzzle types (Logic, pattern recognition, etc)
Adventure - A game where the narrative is the primary focus
Role Playing - A game, often narrative focused, in which the player's primary interaction lies in the management of statistics rather than directly completing actions.
Even now we find many games fit neatly into several of these categories, and thus we have the issue of taxinomy. The system that once allowed a game to be objectively classified is increasingly relying on subjective reasoning - is Mass Effect more Shooter than RPG? Is it more adventure than shooter?
It'd be good to see a decent dialogue system in some action games, but let's leave some nice and mindless for those rainy afternoons when I've had a bad day at work and just wanna pop some heads.
It's a great idea to be sure, but it's definitely something for the more (and I begrudge this term) hardcore crowd of gamers. There's a line between the casuals who play games like MW2 and Halo 3 simply for the competative online and couldn't give two tosses about the single player; and the hardcore crowd who appreciate the finer details, being given dialogue options in Halo 3 or MW2 to make each of their experiences that bit more personal.
In fact, the whole dialogue tree idea may be a put off those who are roped into the casual group. Simply because they play games for slightly different reasons than their (once more) hardcore counterpart.
It's a great idea to be sure, but it's definitely something for the more (and I begrudge this term) hardcore crowd of gamers. There's a line between the casuals who play games like MW2 and Halo 3 simply for the competative online and couldn't give two tosses about the single player; and the hardcore crowd who appreciate the finer details, being given dialogue options in Halo 3 or MW2 to make each of their experiences that bit more personal.
In fact, the whole dialogue tree idea may be a put off those who are roped into the casual group. Simply because they play games for slightly different reasons than their (once more) hardcore counterpart.
ME2, the TPSARPG. Succinct. Very true, at any rate. With narrative content perhaps becoming more important, and gameplay mechanics being blended together more often, genre labels are becoming increasingly difficult to apply. Music faces this same dilemma, and there's no real solution there, only two contrary approaches: invent increasingly more labels, or reduce the number of labels to a few key, all-encompassing umbrella groups. Neither is particularly satisfactory.Eclectic Dreck said:
In all honesty, when I put a lot of my friends down in front of ME2, it doesn't take long for their eyes to glaze over and attention to wander. Dialogue is not for everyone.Azure-Supernova said:
i am a huge fan of me1, and was hugely dispaointed by me2.
there were numerous places me1 could have been improved. but instead they broke most of the aspects that i enjoyed. no loot means when the missions run out so does the money...hard to be a completionist when that happens
the "new" combat is essentially adding armour and making the AI dumber so they always charge at your cover.
heatclips are completely retarded, power cells would have made so much more sense, surely if i don't exhaust the heatclip the heat should disperse and give me more shots? no? they used powercells for the heavy weapons.
the new minigames that replace the old qtime event take longer and can't be skipped. there is no second chances on them either...unless it services the story for you to succeed.
the only two features they added that i liked were arcing biotic shots, and paragon/renegade QT events in conversations. i knew from the end of me1 that story 2 would be the worst of the three. the middle story always is. but if the third game is anything like the second and not more like the first...i'm not buying in.
and i know bioware wont exactly care. but i'm one rpg gamer who's eagerly awaitting bethesda's next single player rpg and no longer cares about anything bioware has to offer, the new EA'd bioware is rapidly declining in my eye's
there were numerous places me1 could have been improved. but instead they broke most of the aspects that i enjoyed. no loot means when the missions run out so does the money...hard to be a completionist when that happens
the "new" combat is essentially adding armour and making the AI dumber so they always charge at your cover.
heatclips are completely retarded, power cells would have made so much more sense, surely if i don't exhaust the heatclip the heat should disperse and give me more shots? no? they used powercells for the heavy weapons.
the new minigames that replace the old qtime event take longer and can't be skipped. there is no second chances on them either...unless it services the story for you to succeed.
the only two features they added that i liked were arcing biotic shots, and paragon/renegade QT events in conversations. i knew from the end of me1 that story 2 would be the worst of the three. the middle story always is. but if the third game is anything like the second and not more like the first...i'm not buying in.
and i know bioware wont exactly care. but i'm one rpg gamer who's eagerly awaitting bethesda's next single player rpg and no longer cares about anything bioware has to offer, the new EA'd bioware is rapidly declining in my eye's
I just want to say: Many PnP RPG dont have level of any sort... here some that come to my mindOnyx Oblivion said:
ShadowRun
World of Darkness games (Vampire the Mascarade, Wearewolf the Apocalypse, ect... even the new edition with Vampire the Requim still dont have levels)
Call of Cthulhu D6
Kult
You are forgetting something: the stereotypical Halo/GoW-gamer doesn't like text. Nor do they like tv-screens where nothing is moving. I think there are certainly some gamers who would love playing games like you described, but it's only a small part of the Halo-crowd, and a part of that part is probably already playing games that don't stuff you with adrenaline from start to end. The other Halogamers might like this if they would actually try, or if they had grown up with a brother who would've forced them to play Baldur's Gate..but in this world, they simply won't give it a chance. Text is scary, you know.
..And this is the moment where I realise that I am finally able to cope with people who have different ideas, views and principles than mine. I am sooo going to write that last sentence of my first paragraph on my desk. As a reminder of the day I stopped condemning everyone but myself.
..And this is the moment where I realise that I am finally able to cope with people who have different ideas, views and principles than mine. I am sooo going to write that last sentence of my first paragraph on my desk. As a reminder of the day I stopped condemning everyone but myself.