Kids Can't Handle Old-School RPGs Anymore

[Something Amyss]

I hope thats your opinion, otherwise I'd take issue with it. As it is, it is a great treat for fans of Baldurs Gate veterans.

LOL. What else would it be but opinion? I shouldn't have to state "IMO" After calling a game terrible.

The only "treat" I got was quitting after I got bored with it. I don't remember that happening with Baldur's Gate. Weird. It's like I don't like something that's retro based solely on it being retro.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

The only reason I have even heard of the series is thanks to Spoony(DAMN YOU GRASS!!!). I have not tried Ultima, but I have played a couple of other old school RPGs and I was mildly entertained.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

One thing I hate about how you used to need the manual was, for example, Metal Gear. There are parts where you either can't beat the game or have to spend an hour guessing a radio code because it's in the manual and the game gives no hints itself. Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence comes with the first 2 metal gear games, but no manual. For a while Kojima's site had a FAQ that helped you with this, but they took it down. I can't find a PDF of the manual on the internet, and I don't want to stoop to using a straight-up guide. I am screwed. All because I can't find out this stuff in-game.

Wait...are there multiple parts in MGS where you need the manual? I thought there was only one spot when you can look at the back of the box to tell you a simple phone code.

That's how I remember it atleast, played the original; way back when it came out though. Also I'm pretty sure you get hints. MGS always gives you hints when you call the right people.

If he's talking about the original Metal Gear games (I have no idea what's included with Subsistence, never having played it...ok, I looked it up, and yes, it is the old ones), we're talking about stuff from the 80s. There was Metal Gear before MGS, although it's barely recognizable in some ways, especially the wacky US NES version.

Edit: And I would've gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddlesome ninjas...

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I hope thats your opinion, otherwise I'd take issue with it. As it is, it is a great treat for fans of Baldurs Gate veterans.

LOL. What else would it be but opinion? I shouldn't have to state "IMO" After calling a game terrible.

The only "treat" I got was quitting after I got bored with it. I don't remember that happening with Baldur's Gate. Weird. It's like I don't like something that's retro based solely on it being retro.

Thank you for clarifying. Its just annoying sometimes to see so many assholes pass off their opinions as fact. So thank you for clearing it up.

 

[Nurb]

It looks like games really have been dumbed down to appeal to a mass audience and sacrificed almost everything that made them unique.

And asking the player to actually DO SOMETHING like read the manual are dedicate some time to writing things down! The horror! This isn't school. The nerve of those older games forcing kids to do more than stuff cheetos and nasty versions of HFCS infused mountain dew into their fat or greasy face!

 

[Overseer76]

(This is a reconstructed post. I dropped my keyboard and must have hit F5 or something... So forgive me if it seems disjointed.)

@ Gildedtongue: PRECISELY what I was going to say. There just wasn't enough memory capacity to add in a description, hint or tutorial back in those days. I work for a popular video game retailer (you know the one) and many of my parental customers insist on having a "manual" in with their pre-owned purchases even though said manual is often little more than epileptic seizure warnings and painfully detailed explanations on how to turn your system ON.

It's not limited to kids, or gamers. All consumers are spoiled brats who refuse to read instructions. You can put "READ THIS" in fifteen-inch-high letters on the front cover, and people still won't read it. Half of the tech support calls in existence wouldn't take place if people would just read the goddamn manual that comes with their stuff.

True. Too few people understand their equipment or what it can do. I get it all the time. "A singing game for the Nintendo DS?" Yes; it has a microphone. "I can connect MY system to the internet and download games?" Yes; all of them can. "Wirelessly?" Yes, there's a wi-fi antenna built in (unless you have an original-model 360). (there was originally a better third example, but I forgot it.)

About manuals, I was drawn into the Halo series based on the strength of the first one (I refuse to call it "Combat Evolved" as that is obviously a tagline blurb and not intended to be part of the title). The very idea that humanity has been demonized by not one but a COALITION of alien races due to their shared religious beliefs was such a fresh idea in a sea of sci-fi premises that I wanted to see more. (And btw, I'm getting tired of explaining that Halo: Reach is nothing like the lackluster, Spartan-free ODST, it's lousy with Spartans, and it's a prequel; things one would understand from the very title if they had read the manual from the first game.)

Also, this article has inspired me to actually fire up Temple of Elemental Evil, which I bought years ago, but never got around to playing...

 

[ultrachicken]

When I tried to play both of the original fallouts, the lack of any guide confused the shit out of me, too.

 

[Canid117]

These kids should have immediately known to read the manual when the name "Richard Garriot" came up.

 

[Jonny49]

I hardly ever refer to the game-manual simply because I never feel like I need it, although it is nice to look through a game-manual with lots of story/character information in it. Games nowadays all kinds follow the same control-schemes I guess.

 

[ultrachicken]

It's not limited to kids, or gamers. All consumers are spoiled brats who refuse to read instructions. You can put "READ THIS" in fifteen-inch-high letters on the front cover, and people still won't read it. Half of the tech support calls in existence wouldn't take place if people would just read the goddamn manual that comes with their stuff.

That's because half of the "READ THIS" things that are put on a box of electronics are safety warnings that don't apply to most people, or that they already knew about.

 

[Sebenko]

Civilization IV's manual made my brain explode, and I am also dissapointed with some "game manuals" like the call of duty series, where it tells NOTHING of the events or anything like that, I enjoyed Red Dead Manual and World of warcraft's and halo's manuals.

I didn't get a manual with Civ IV!

I bought some PC gamer reprint, and it had no manual. Now I'm all annoyed and stuff.

 

[SnipErlite]

Mostly I don't read manuals these days because I steam a lot of games. No manuals...

Although I remember reading Oblivion's manual right the way through before I'd even installed the game. Heh.

Yeah I'm not surprised kids now can't handle older games, especially RPGs. We just don't have the patience (yeah I do include myself in that, I'm an impatient little bastard )

 

[icyneesan]

When I was younger I was read the manual in the car ride home from the video game store so I would know all the basic controls. This was for any game, any platform. Makes me wonder what these kids do in the car while they hold a brand new video game in theres hands...

 

[Nieroshai]

We're too used to good graphics and intuitive interfaces, I guess?

There's nothing intuitive about the unskippable tutorials most games have now. Intuitive was MegaMan and even that seems too hard to grasp.

Spoiler: quote snipped for brevity

The only "hard to" part about Megaman I remember was having to guess who was weak against what, and what order to take the bosses on in. That and it's a genuinely difficult platformer. Not Ninja Gaiden hard, but hard enough to have to use several continues on a first playthrough. A thing about modern games is the principle that dying a lot=/=fun so the default difficulty is made so that a beginner will die some but a seasoned player can breeze through it. That's what hard modes are for.

Andtutorials truly are there because we're too lazy to read the manual. OR that we got the game at Gamestop without the manual. OR that reading isn't enough and you want to practice first. OR because learning how to play flows into the narrative and the character as well is just learning how to do these things.

So you're saying tutorials are there because games are NOT intuitive any more? Which is basically the same thing I said, and ultimately Ultima IV could be controlled and adventured well enough without the manual. It was just helpful to have the story (which was quite colorfully presented in it's time) laid out so you know where to start.

Really it wasn't that big of a deal.

Think now.. If there was an open world game where you got an actual bestiary that only verbally gave hints at the strategy that would be necessary to take down an enemy. It'd be called innovative.

Really I think, and have said elsewhere on the board, the general lack of creativity and intelligence goes hand in hand with the current generation. I don't blame video games either, but the eduction and social tactic to create a hive mind is really ruining any sense of individual.

I'm saying that forcing the player to test everything out and hope they've figured everything out ISNT intuitive, and making a game easy to pick up even though it gets challenging as the player learns IS. Also, open-world gameplay is innovative to a point. It stops being innovative when there's no choice BUT to explore EVERY nook and cranny of an IMMENSE world when in reality there's bound to be a much easier and logical and practical way to find out where you're going. Dungeons and Dragons makes the player be self-relient without WTF moments of leaving you in the dark and expecting unreasonable solutions, and asks only that the player play intelligently. I don't need to draw myself a map of the world because those exist, and drawing a dungeon map is easy but the world? I don't need to ask every person on the planet, because why is Peasant#43 going to know where the sword of evil's bane is? Old games were full of HOW THE HELL WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT?! moments. Lord British was famous for making REALLY GOOD D&D campaigns, so it really confuses me that while he was good at that, in the Ultima games he made them an unrealistic grind. Although, I may only be talking about my experiences with the Ultima series, so I'm no expert. I just remember the credo my game dev professor drilled into our head and made us write a hundred times to make sure we memorized it. "Keep It Simple, Stupid"

 

[EvolutionKills]

Am I the only person who ever reads the manual? I love reading the fluff that comes with videogames, and when it comes to CRPG's, you often NEED to read the manual.

Stupid children.


EDIT: Then again, it might be because I'm so damned old. 29 isn't exactly a spring chicken anymore.

Just about 25 over here, and I remember playing the first two Fallout games when they came out. I totally missed Ultima IV, but I get the ideas behind it. I wonder how they where playing it? On a couple of ancient Apple II's or (more likely) on an emulator?

 

[SimuLord]

I played Ultima IV in 1985. I was in third grade. Beat the game backwards and forwards.

And the simple fact is that the game doesn't hold up. It's a good reason games aren't made like that anymore. Garriott's insistence that players read the manual, the whole manual, and nothing but the manual is akin to Hideo Kojima creating an unskippable cutscene. It's author egotism, not productive gameplay.

That professor's students are merely pointing out that games have evolved, and that's a good thing---I wouldn't be a gamer today if I still had to deal with the Richard Garriott and Roberta Williams types (Williams in particular was infamous for the "kidnap the author and install mind reading device if you EVER want to figure out that adventure game puzzle" gameplay mechanic.)

Using Portal to study game design is innovative. Using Ultima IV is nostalgia goggles.

 

[cerebus23]

no games realy force you to explore anymore, i mean there is plenty of exploration to be had in fallout 3, and since enemies scale with you nothing is really dangerous, for the most part, if you did choose to just strike out and go wandering around. but if the game had no compass and quest, points of interest indicator and people were forced to just wander around looking for everything, many gamers would have hated it.

games that made you find things on your own are long dead, last mmo that did that was asherons call, you had a basic map with some of the towns marked on it and some basic portal spots and a few dungeons but the vast majority of the world was unmarked, even the epic quests people had to scour the world to find the clues to start them and then find the new dungeons. So you had to keep a list of location coordinates and map points of interest and crude landmark path finding on bits of paper and index cards.

Ahh the good old days before wikis and walkthrous were all over the internet.

But then games started more and more to hold your hand, no fogs of war no lack of quest checkpoints, games told you "go here stupid" where old games just said "go somewhere stupid" and old games were more than happy to get you killed wandering around.

I think it would be far more interesting if this professor focused on the hows and whys of why we have liked out games so limited in scope. yea it can be frustrating not know where exactly the next town is or where the quest you are supposed to be doing is, but the great games had a abundance of things to find in the world, secret stashes of treasure, runes of power, hidden mega bosses that would kick your arse but promise untold wealth and power if you managed to beat them at some point.

Were we got off that track of having fun exploring and why social and societal causes lead to it, was it just game makers dumbing things down? or did people change over the years to force game makers to simplify their games so they would not get angry and not play.

what came first the chicken or the egg more or less.

all that said ultima series was brutally hard period. take away the lack of maps and direction and you still had a game that was going to kill you often and make you earn your way along.

 

[Lunar Shadow]

I still draw maps on grid paper. Though I am no longer allowed to point out to the DM that his dungeon is physically impossible without some kind of pocket dimension.

 

[xscoot]

Today we have a gaming community where things like "Mass Effect 1" were too stat heavy for many players, leading to the more shooter-esque "Mass Effect 2". People want to be taken by the hand and not have to work on, or discover anything on their own.

It's not that ME1 was too stat heavy, just that the stat system was utter shit. Besides, you're forgetting why stats existed in the first place. When Dungeons and Dragons was made it was impossible to really have any gameplay; it was a table top game after all. Stats, dice rolls and turn based battles were used to try and simulate these. We're at the point where we don't need stats, and can instead focus on good storytelling and multiple gameplay styles.

I'd say that Deus Ex had even less in the way of stats than ME2, but it's the much better game due to the story and due to the incredible freedom of choice.