How to make RPGs better

[Bulletinmybrain]

Why is it that a good topic like this always ends up with banter about how good X Y and Z game was? We KNOW they were good games... This topic is about how to make the NEW games good like the old ones. Come on fellas, lets take those memories of great games, and figure out WHY they were great so we can force (at gunpoint if necessary) game companies to put those FUN parts back in.

There, I've done penance for all the times I totally derailed other threads in nostalgic gibberygoo. Now when does Ziggy say we leap out of this one?

We describe great games and how they work. If you imitate said great game then your game should be great right? You hammer out the flaws and wahla great game.

 

[Saevus]

I got halfway through The Witcher before hearing about the enhanced edition. I decided to wait until it came out so I could start over. The characters are well developed, the world is interesting and unconvetnional, and the questwriting is fantastic.

Its a very good one from an RP point of view, but I was kind of turned off by the simplistic combat mechanics.

Yep.

Why can't we make RPGs really good anymore?

Well, developers have to pay the piper. They have to make money. And the sad reality is that most of the market today is not in a frenzy over slamming down $60 for a game that touts itself as a 'rich, complex story full of original characters'.

Most people are willing to accept crap like Neverwinter Nights 2. The game literally forced you to walk away and leave unattended the corpses of several extremely powerful mages who were in the middle of a ritual that would have turned them into undead shadows when you killed them. I nearly ripped my monitor from my desk and threw it across the room as, sure enough, the shades of your antagonists rose up more powerful than ever before. But most people don't care.

Neverwinter Nights 2 did have shiny graphics, though.

The Witcher, for all its emphasis on plot, also gave you shiny graphics - at the fatal cost of painful load times that left the entire game feeling disjointed.

Oblivion was completely lacklustre and nowhere near as filling as Morrowind, but can any of you say that it didn't look like a three-course feast of RPG goodness?

The gaming demographic is more about visuals than text, now, and unless that trend's a pendulum, then things can only go downhill.

Edit: I know I sound like a Negative Nancy, but honestly, nothing has come out to really excite me in over 5 years. Half a decade. Not a terribly long time in my life, but in terms of gaming, that's quite a stretch.

Double edit: whoever linked GOG, that stuff looks like a fucking godsend.

 

[TheKbob]

The Witcher, for all its emphasis on plot, also gave you shiny graphics - at the fatal cost of painful load times that left the entire game feeling disjointed.

Double edit: whoever linked GOG, that stuff looks like a fucking godsend.

A) They have fixed most of that and are fixing it more this September

B) Welcome!

Wish I could get into those old games like you guys do. I'll put it in the easiest terms: They are just too hard for me

 

[creepy_rabbit]

i think that "arr pee gees" are most liked because of their "freedom-feeling" that i feel rpgs are supossed to give you, although you can allways feel as you can see these limitations that you get, for example; in oblivion you cant go to other provinces or in final fantasy its incredibly linear. there is one simple answer to this ; add as much freedom as possible or at least make the limitations less clear

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

Why is it that a good topic like this always ends up with banter about how good X Y and Z game was? We KNOW they were good games... This topic is about how to make the NEW games good like the old ones. Come on fellas, lets take those memories of great games, and figure out WHY they were great so we can force (at gunpoint if necessary) game companies to put those FUN parts back in.

There, I've done penance for all the times I totally derailed other threads in nostalgic gibberygoo. Now when does Ziggy say we leap out of this one?

We describe great games and how they work. If you imitate said great game then your game should be great right? You hammer out the flaws and wahla great game.

Voila, you have a game that's derivative. Innovation and imitation are not the best bed buddies.

Sure but once somethings polished to a mirror shine then someones going to have to innovate. Thats why we don't play in 2D anymore.

 

[Saevus]

i think that "arr pee gees" are most liked because of their "freedom-feeling" that i feel rpgs are supossed to give you, although you can allways feel as you can see these limitations that you get, for example; in oblivion you cant go to other provinces or in final fantasy its incredibly linear. there is one simple answer to this ; add as much freedom as possible or at least make the limitations less clear

No.

Not at all the answer.

Otherwise, GTA would be the definition of a phenomenal FPS.

 

[yourkie1921]

I think the big problem of RPGs is the ammount of time you spend in menu screens, if item equipping was simpler to understand (ie oblivion WTF do all those symbols mean?) a simple magic, defense, and strength system like kingdom hearts would help a bunch to the more complicated RPGs.

ummmmmmmm.....are you retarded. I agree there are more stats than necisary but: attack/defense power, weight, value for items, not in that order.

Also, either have the game be linear with side quests that really wouldn't effect your reputation in a negative way. Or positive if you're a bad guy. So elder scrolls, the sidequest where you go kill 5 vampires can stay, The fighter guild's quests can stay. However the assassin's quests..............that really shouldn't work into the main quest, it could be made to but it shouldn't be expected

non-linear, have the side quests effect the main story line. If I take back the farm of 2 warriors who lost it to goblins, they should've helped me save bruma from the deadra. The assassin quests, one of the speaker's or whatever should come help you in the final quest and you should be able to have them assassinate people.

AND LESS INVINCIBLES. I don't expect you to be able to kill everyone, but in elder scrolls there were invincible guards, no. I want the count to be invincible if I kill his heir and his heir to be invincible if I kill him, or however far the chain goes until no one can possibly take the job. I want characters only necisary for side quests that aren't guild quests to be killable.

 

[Saevus]

AND LESS INVINCIBLES. I don't expect you to be able to kill everyone, but in elder scrolls there were invincible guards, no. I want the count to be invincible if I kill his heir and his heir to be invincible if I kill him, or however far the chain goes until no one can possibly take the job. I want characters only necisary for side quests that aren't guild quests to be killable.

Agreed. Given that you could actually kill the GODS in Morrowind? Can't believe they reneged on that.

Seriously, as long as you say 'You have severed the threads of fate by killing this character!' or something, just as an F.Y.I. to reload, I love being able to KFE.

 

[CalamusGary]

I think if RPG's got a sense of focus about themselves they could be greatly improved. If a game is going to offer me choice then I want to be able to make those choices, be evil, murder and not be forced to follow the linear plot as well and be the hero. If a company wants to release a truly great story then linear games are a better vehicle.

Also as has been said, shades of gray would be nice. I was incredibly annoyed playing Mass Effect because I decided my character was going to be a generally good guy but he had a bit of a short temper. This meant that I wasnt granted access to the extra conversation options because I didnt devote myself to being paragon or renegade.

 

[Saevus]

You should have the ability to rape, as well.
Gets you higher Personality AND Blade skills.

...no comment.

Some games do allow you to rape, though they don't always directly say what you did. And I'm not just talking about H-games, dating sims, whatever you want to call them. Fallout 2 comes to mind immediately.

 

[Irmekroache]

I only enjoy RPGs for the writing the art and the large explorable world. Only reason. The idea of a virtual "you" defined by variables sounds extremely weird. Never got into that stuff. RPGs for me are more of an excuse to experience an adventure, open-endedness is essential as an illusion for this virtual adventure.

Good writing and art are in turn, essential for a good illusion of open-endedness.

 

[Irmekroache]

I am no man. (Yet)

 

[Dancingman]

We need to start getting some fucking artistry into games, that's what we need to do. Instead of having a generic good ending and a generic bad ending, why not start showing more shades of grey? Why not have your character try to do the good thing at the end of the game, yet in doing so causing even more harm. Or rather than having your evil character mwa-ha-ha off into the sunset, why not show him becoming psychologically fractured from being so evil and corrupted. Instead of making good and evil endings the polar opposite of each other, why not introduce themes and motifs that recur in both? Why not have evil kings, trapped princesses and crusading knights with some actual depth and motivation? Is it really that difficult?

Also, more stats do not mean more freedom! Stats were good for pen and paper RPGs where the only thing to keep the game going was your stats sheet and your imagination. This, however, is meant to be the 'next generation'. Everything is presented in Hi-Definition, Surround Sound, Anti-Aliased, High Quality Texture 350,000 fucking colour splendour. Why are we still clinging to a system that was never meant to be anything more than a guideline to stop our D&D imaginations running away with us?

In my opinion, this guy is right on the money in terms of RP morality, the problem with a few of the slightly older RPGs (Kotor, Jade Empire, etc.) is that they offered very little in terms of moral choice. Often it the choice was either help the old widow earn some money or poison her last surviving son, I loved Kotor 2 despite the vast plot holes leading to an incredibly confusing story, what I loved was that not only did all your party members have their own senses of morality, you could also have an instance where a doing a good deed ultimately lead to bad consequences. I want to point the finger at Bioshock, which, albeit had a great story and well-done gameplay, offered absolutely no choice between being the reincarnation of Mother Teresa and literal child-killing. The Witcher offed the problem of a shallow morality system by including far more gray, in one quest you had to take the side of either the townspeople, many of whom had skeletons in their closet, including a rapist, and a witch who had sold a poison used in a suicide, that kind of difficult decision is what RPG players need. I also have a list of ideas to improve RPGs in general.

1. Writer variety, an earlier poster had this idea and I agree, it is interesting to have more than one person on the writing team because it is refreshing to have multiple writing styles at play rather than the same person writing everything.

2. Quest variety, especially among MMOs, this is a serious problem. A ridiculous percentage of quests in RPGs are either "Kill X amount of X and bring me X" I now consider quests that involve something like "Convince the man not to steal the jewel" as a priveledge, when they should be a right.

3. Balance linearity with sandbox gameplay
Games can indeed be too linear, some games, such as Vikings: Battle for Asgard, tried to encourage exploration but failed to amply reward the player, although exploring new lands and fighting new enemies is fun, players need to be given an enchanted weapon for their efforts. Two Worlds not only encouraged exploration, it forced it, level scaling was nonexistent, for this reason you would need a serious amount of questing and leveling before you could hope to confront the main quest, Unfortunately, the idea only sounded good on paper and in practice turned out to create a disjointed and aimless feel to the game. In my opinion, I much prefer Oblivion's approach, although it felt a bit unrealistic for a simple escaped prisoner with a rusty sword to stop an army of demons as well as the cult that worshiped them, I liked that the level scaling made questing feel like an option rather than a necessity, Oblivion's quest, although fairly compelling, started well before beginning a downward spiral into a series of the ever-annoying "fetch me these" quests and then slowly climbing back up . Mass Effect was good at balancing the main quest with side quests because occasionally you would need to undertake minor quests before you could progress with the main quest.

4. Dynamic worlds
Most games in which I wipe out a cave full of bandits mean that I can come back a few hours later and find them all right back there sipping ale and making smalltalk like nobody's business, but I do think that the Two Worlds approach was wrong, I would rather return to a cave and kill the same orcs repeatedly rather than fight boredom in a desolate wasteland. I prefer a dynamic, changing world. Although it is more difficult to do then recycling the same orcs over and over, maybe they could change it up, bandits replace the orcs, and then after that a small group of rogue mages. I find that it is rewarding when I'm given the choice to open the city gates during a siege, have the invaders rush in, and come back later to see that the invaders have burned the city to the ground and a small camp of refugees is located nearby, or I could have defended the city and stopped that whole chain of events.

 

[DreamKing]

How about an MMO where everything is created by the users? How about a system that respawns enemies in time, like enemies that can become wiped out of extistance because the players killed them all. How about players create the armor and weapons Spore style? After gaining experience, players could spend the points on tweaking the weapon or armor. Players could also gain alliances with the various creatures by preforming tasks for them or just staying nearby. Quests could be player generated. If fighting is not what you want to do, open a shop, open a hotel, create your own items. Did I miss anything?