Kids Can't Handle Old-School RPGs Anymore
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
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What did the manual actually tell you to do? I just can't imagine the game being that hard without it.
As an IT technician I can confirm that this is all too true. Come to think of it did I read the WoW manual when I originally bought the game? Hmm I think I read a bit of it and then skimmed the rest.Sylocat said:
Abbott believes the "gap separating today's generation of gamers from those of us who once drew maps on grid paper is nearly unbridgeable."
This is absolutely true when it comes to World of Warcraft. The game forces you through all kinds of in-game tutorials, with the cost being that the manual tells you almost nothing useful about gameplay or controls.
Also, while there are tons of after-market add-ons that clever programmers have made, simply searching for a useful MAP of a dungeon is incredibly frustrating. Seems nobody has bothered to draw their own maps and share them. Everything is just copy-pasted from the game itself. Guess what - if the in-game map didn't suck so bad, I wouldn't be looking online for another one!! A little grid-paper and pencil work would be appreciated here.
This is absolutely true when it comes to World of Warcraft. The game forces you through all kinds of in-game tutorials, with the cost being that the manual tells you almost nothing useful about gameplay or controls.
Also, while there are tons of after-market add-ons that clever programmers have made, simply searching for a useful MAP of a dungeon is incredibly frustrating. Seems nobody has bothered to draw their own maps and share them. Everything is just copy-pasted from the game itself. Guess what - if the in-game map didn't suck so bad, I wouldn't be looking online for another one!! A little grid-paper and pencil work would be appreciated here.
You have to remember that these games had a pre-mouse interface. Every single alphabet key had a function, in addition to the keys one used for movement; many required a series of keys to perform a function. Ultima III even had an "Other" command (O) which then had the player type in what they wanted to do ("BRIBE" guard...)
So, yeah, I can see how catching on to such an interface would prove difficult to someone who was raised on a ten-button joypad.
However, it needs to be said that "difficult" does not mean "not worthwhile", and while long hand-holding tutorial stages and pop-up help screens have become the norm, that doesn't make a game that didn't have them (and predates them) "poorly designed". In part, it's not having such things and requiring the player to actually- gasp!- read that allowed the games their depth and complexity in an age where the typical computer had less memory to cram everything into than most people today have in their cell phones.
It's also probably worth pointing out that those manuals and maps and so forth that came with the Ultimas also served as a form of copy protection in the days before e-mail.
So, yeah, I can see how catching on to such an interface would prove difficult to someone who was raised on a ten-button joypad.
However, it needs to be said that "difficult" does not mean "not worthwhile", and while long hand-holding tutorial stages and pop-up help screens have become the norm, that doesn't make a game that didn't have them (and predates them) "poorly designed". In part, it's not having such things and requiring the player to actually- gasp!- read that allowed the games their depth and complexity in an age where the typical computer had less memory to cram everything into than most people today have in their cell phones.
It's also probably worth pointing out that those manuals and maps and so forth that came with the Ultimas also served as a form of copy protection in the days before e-mail.
I can't help but notice a certain amount of elitism in this thread. From both sides. On the one hand, you have the old-school gamers saying, "These kids nowadays are so stupid because they can't handle a game which is essentially D&D without the Dungeon Master." On the other, you have the new-school gamers saying, "Today's games are far better because you don't need a college degree and clairvoyance to play them." I think it should be somewhere in the middle. Yes, games that encourage exploration and are somewhat complex are fun, but games shouldn't be written just for people who have played PnP games. Having to futz around with the controller for ten minutes trying to figure out how to make your character move is not fun. Likewise, games shouldn't be designed for just twitchy, epileptic slaughterfests. In other words, games can be complex, but it's nice to have some direction as to where to go or what to do.
Yeah, but you can say the same thing about the times back then compared to now as well. Like kids these days couldn't handle walking 5 miles to school back in the days. They couldn't handle "parenting" back then either. Social services back then? That was when if your parents weren't there to paddle your ass, the principal of the school got the honor to do that. Many of things change not just RPGs that probably couldn't be handled by the kids these days.
Yikes, the oldest RPG I've ever played was BG 2. But even then I waded through the instruction manual. It's probably a holdover from back in the day when you couldn't even install the bloody game without first reading the manual to figure out how to reconfig your Dos autoexec.
Sigh, those were the halcyon days of glory when elves were ELVES and graphics were monochrome!
Sigh, those were the halcyon days of glory when elves were ELVES and graphics were monochrome!
Wow Ultima IV... I loved that game! That and King's Quest VIII and D&D: Death Knights of Krynn were the shit back on my old PC (by old I mean a 386 with an *upgraded* video card running windows 95.) People don't appreciate good games anymore. This is why I get so mad when idiot kids half my age tell my Oblivion is a better RPG than the ones I play. It's fun and all, but it doesn't beat Dragon Warrior IV, Final Fatasy III, Illusions of Gaia or even Zelda: The Adventures of Link! (Screw you, it was a good game!)
It's all true. Games just aren't what they used to be, they're way too easy nowadays. They should start writing games that are fun and difficult again, games that require hand-drawn maps and note-taking and reading large manuals and cryptic messages and using your fucking brain, that's the kind of game I want to play. I think I'll pick up an Apple ][ emulator or something, try out this Ultima IV ...
I don't think that it has to do with the fact that new gamers are "lazy", it's just that the nature of games have changed. I do believe that although manuals are nice, they shouldn't be absolutely vital to understanding a game, at least not with the memory capacity we have nowadays. Some games do hold your hand, but that doesn't mean that all tutorials are bad. They're just a way to make it easier to know how to play the damn game, which should be a simple learning experience.
That said, maybe I see it this way because I'm a newer gamer. In fact, I don't see the appeal in things a lot of older gamers consider fun. I don't like exploring in video games, I like doing things. Killing enemies, talking to monsters, rearranging the stuff in my attache case so it all fits, it's all fun, and it's what I enjoy in a game. Exploring? "Oh hey, look, there's some trees. And there's a rock. A cave, how exciting! Oh, look, a deer!"
If I wanted that, I'd take a walk in the woods.
That said, maybe I see it this way because I'm a newer gamer. In fact, I don't see the appeal in things a lot of older gamers consider fun. I don't like exploring in video games, I like doing things. Killing enemies, talking to monsters, rearranging the stuff in my attache case so it all fits, it's all fun, and it's what I enjoy in a game. Exploring? "Oh hey, look, there's some trees. And there's a rock. A cave, how exciting! Oh, look, a deer!"
If I wanted that, I'd take a walk in the woods.
You know, I actually like reading manuals. I read them when I'm bored sometimes, and it was the first thing I did when I got a new game. I'm a younger gamer, my first was the 64, and instruction booklets are an important part of gaming. Imagine my suprise when I open up my brothers Resistance FOM case, and find a barely folded couple of pieces of paper that barely even tell the controls. "Wheres the story? Wheres the items page?" I thought to myself. These days, only the Nintendo games have instruction booklets, and occasionally psp games, but I haven't played enough psp games to know for sure. I'm 15 years old, and I like retro games. I look back over old ones through emulators, and I enjoy roguelikes. These people who don't know what to do unless they have a big arrow and a keyboard shortcuts screen is depressing for me to hear. I can say as a young gamer, in this demographic, that if I can enjoy MUDs and other old rpgs, that it's truly bad to hear, with most young gamers crying when they don't get halo reach and L4D2 on it's launch day. Oh well.
Oh, and you should check out etrian oddysey for the ds. That things old school and tough as nails. One of it's mechanics is the fat that you have to draw your own grid map on the lower screen. Quite fun.
Perhaps gamers (or, more correctly put, students, since there's no guarantee that all of his students are 'hardcore' gamers or even like RPGs) are just a little bit lazier these days. Or a little less patient. Perhaps that's not entirely their fault either - I mean, if studios release games that are more 'pick up and play', or more usually, have an in-game interactive tutorial that renders the manual superfluous, then people are going to get used to that.
Is this such a bad thing? Granted, we shouldn't accept substanceless, too-easy fluff (certinaly not for the price you pay for games these days), but at the same time, some older games were more obtuse than they needed to be, because the audience was smaller and expected different things. Newer games might be more intuitive (or less complex, or more hand-holdy, or however you like to see it), but that doesn't make them *bad* games. That's like saying that things are only good if they're difficult. These days games are accessible to more people, and I think that's great. We're never going to shake the negative connotations of gaming if the pastime doesn't expand to appeal to more people.
Is this such a bad thing? Granted, we shouldn't accept substanceless, too-easy fluff (certinaly not for the price you pay for games these days), but at the same time, some older games were more obtuse than they needed to be, because the audience was smaller and expected different things. Newer games might be more intuitive (or less complex, or more hand-holdy, or however you like to see it), but that doesn't make them *bad* games. That's like saying that things are only good if they're difficult. These days games are accessible to more people, and I think that's great. We're never going to shake the negative connotations of gaming if the pastime doesn't expand to appeal to more people.
Old school?
Hell most of them cant even handle modern RPGs.
I tryed to get my friend mike to play Dragon Age, and he spent 20 minutes wondering around before asking me what to do.
he skipped through every conversation and didnt listen to a single word anyone said.
:/ his favorite game his halo.
Hell most of them cant even handle modern RPGs.
I tryed to get my friend mike to play Dragon Age, and he spent 20 minutes wondering around before asking me what to do.
he skipped through every conversation and didnt listen to a single word anyone said.
:/ his favorite game his halo.
To be honest, I don't think its that people are stupider or anything. Its just that we think about them differently.
Back when Ultima IV was new (some 18 months before I was born) people were still very much in the stage of 'HOLY CRAP ITS A GAME!!!!'. Thats what grabbed the attention, and since games were far less numerous, and particularly there weren't really many RPGs, if you had actually paid out for one, then you sure as hell were going to play it through to the end, no matter how much work that implied.
By the time the novelty wore off, you had a tight grip of the rules and the story. Nowerdays, we've seen amazing graphics, breathtaking stories and so on. Its been said a lot by Yahtzee that if a game doesn't keep hold of your attention, it doesn't matter how good it gets after twenty hours.
If it doesn't grab you and make you want to keep playing its not doing its job. Thats not to say the Ultima IV is bad, its just that it was made for a different time, when people had way lower expectations of video games, no other option other than to keep playing it, and they had never seen the conveniences of pre-drawn maps and immediately available resources, so dealing without them was no big deal. You did what you do in a pen and paper game. You make a note, or draw it out.
Once you've used those resources and are used to having them, going back to a time without them just makes you feel lost and cheated (that feeling of there being no way of knowing what you were supposed to do until afterwards).
Personally, when I have gone back to older games, I have been really unimpressed. Once upon a time, I played RPGs HARD. Shining Force 3 was a game that never left my saturn for maybe 6 months. I didn't just play to the end, I spent weeks getting every characters levels up high and getting their special attacks and gear just perfect. Nowerdays, that kinda grinding really puts me off. I hate it a lot. But when there was no other way to play, you just did it.
Back when Ultima IV was new (some 18 months before I was born) people were still very much in the stage of 'HOLY CRAP ITS A GAME!!!!'. Thats what grabbed the attention, and since games were far less numerous, and particularly there weren't really many RPGs, if you had actually paid out for one, then you sure as hell were going to play it through to the end, no matter how much work that implied.
By the time the novelty wore off, you had a tight grip of the rules and the story. Nowerdays, we've seen amazing graphics, breathtaking stories and so on. Its been said a lot by Yahtzee that if a game doesn't keep hold of your attention, it doesn't matter how good it gets after twenty hours.
If it doesn't grab you and make you want to keep playing its not doing its job. Thats not to say the Ultima IV is bad, its just that it was made for a different time, when people had way lower expectations of video games, no other option other than to keep playing it, and they had never seen the conveniences of pre-drawn maps and immediately available resources, so dealing without them was no big deal. You did what you do in a pen and paper game. You make a note, or draw it out.
Once you've used those resources and are used to having them, going back to a time without them just makes you feel lost and cheated (that feeling of there being no way of knowing what you were supposed to do until afterwards).
Personally, when I have gone back to older games, I have been really unimpressed. Once upon a time, I played RPGs HARD. Shining Force 3 was a game that never left my saturn for maybe 6 months. I didn't just play to the end, I spent weeks getting every characters levels up high and getting their special attacks and gear just perfect. Nowerdays, that kinda grinding really puts me off. I hate it a lot. But when there was no other way to play, you just did it.