Mass Effect is not an RPG
- Thread starter Vault101
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How about we compromise, call it an RPG-Shooter, and got on with our lives.
I'm sure we've all got other threads totroll add valuable feedback to.
Remember, genres are determined by the predominant element(s)in it. Mass Effect is a role-playing game because you determine the personality of your character, AND a shooter because it features heavy use of cover-based shooting and "skill-shots".
I'm sure we've all got other threads to
Remember, genres are determined by the predominant element(s)in it. Mass Effect is a role-playing game because you determine the personality of your character, AND a shooter because it features heavy use of cover-based shooting and "skill-shots".
I'd classify a RPG as a game in which a customizable persona's (the player character's) decisions significantly change or direct the story/plot. With that definition, I'd consider Mass Effect a RPG.
Inventories, stats, open worlds and levels (of both characters and abilities) are all common elements, but unless you have significant influence over how the story plays out, I don't consider it a RPG.
Ironically, I think this means I'd consider Lost Odyssey, a game I happen to like quite a bit, more of an action-adventure game... Hrmmm...
Inventories, stats, open worlds and levels (of both characters and abilities) are all common elements, but unless you have significant influence over how the story plays out, I don't consider it a RPG.
Ironically, I think this means I'd consider Lost Odyssey, a game I happen to like quite a bit, more of an action-adventure game... Hrmmm...
I can't stand people that complain that a game doesn't have something, even if it doesn't fit for the style of gamer that the game was made for.Vault101 said:
This whole area falls under something I hate that game companies do. They make a game a certain way, style/genre, but then the squeal to the first is different or almost different, style/genre wise.
This relates to a thread a few days ago where the creator harped on Dragon Age because it was too much like a traditional RPG where you have to actually think and manage your party and make the right choices or you will have problems in the game.
I'll part of what I said in that thread. Some gamers like traditional RPG's. They like to manage their parties and work with them to make them how they want.
Players have to learn what kind of games they like to play, and play those games. If you don't like games that have traditional RPG elements, don't play games that have them. Don't complain that a game maker puts such things in a game. Every game starts out with a certain audience in mind, and is made for what that audience likes about the genre that game is from. It is obvious that someone that plays a game that isn't targeted for what they like, will not like it, or parts of it.
There isn't enough acceptance for certain areas of the game industry. They can't please everybody with a game. It doesn't matter how great or loved a game is, there will always be detractors. But, those are people that don't understand that the game isn't made for them.
Considering how Mass Effect changed from 1 to 2, I hope Bioware doesn't do that with Dragon Age 2. It better keep all the RPG elements that the Dragon Age has.
I don't really agree with the argument, but whatever. You can be as angry and unreasonable as you want. Why would you want to remove the RPG elements from Mass Effect? I'm sure the kind of game we need right now is ANOTHER cover-based shooter about space marines.
I don't really care much for the argument. An RPG is just that: a Role Playing Game; in the ME games: you role play. Sure, Bioware has shifted from more traditional RPG conventions, yet the emphasis on the immediacy of action coupled with a fair amount of NPC interaction and story development works nonetheless. If some people don't like the direction it takes, that's fine.
on the contrary, from everything I've heard about it, it seems like it's too much RPG, or at least the first one is, and I'm not going to jump in on the second installment of a series (or later), especially when it depends so much on what came before, so I guess I'm just not going to play it
Actually there is no arguement involved in this. It's not an RPG.
[/quote]
If you have a name, a story, and a leveling system, it's an RPG.
It may also be other things, but it's an RPG.
The problem is that people act as if these definitions (RPG FPS ect.) are mutually exclusive, when you consider the most widely accepted definitions, there is a lot of overlap, technically you could have a game that's an Action RPG FPS Strategy, it wouldn't be easy to do, and I don't know why the hell you would do it, but it could be done.[/quote]
Actually that's not true at all. I received several messages saying the same thing, and I think the problem is people either not understanding what an RPG is, or not wanting to. I suspect the latter.
Stories, leveling systems, all of that is pretty much irrelevent. The first RPGs had none of those things. RPGs are totally about stat management and how it affects the outcome of things.
RPGs are the child of wargaming, with people in college getting together to similate ancient conflicts, and perhaps fight out hypothetical battles if things had happened differantly. Numbers being used to represent the relative merits of differant units, and dice to represent chance and the role it can play in warfare (ie we know a gun of a certain type is inaccurate and unreliable, so the dice represent whether or not the weapons involved will perform properly in this napoleanic-era war simulation).
What happened is people got into fighting battles on increasingly small scales, both for the sake of the price involved in purchusing (or self-casting) that many lead figures, and also due to a desire among many to focus on the tactical elements of conflicts rather than the stretegic merits. Of course as you reduced the scale, things became increasingly complicated due to it focusing on the people involved more than anything.
RPGs started when people got the idea of pretty much focusing on fights between individuals. The entire point was the creation of engines that allowed such a battle to happen mathematically without any action on the part of the people involved.
This turned into people deciding to see if they could similarly simulate fantasy warriors as opposed to just ones from history, and this of course lead to the development of dungeon crawling games as the focus on individual combat required some sort of objective (as in, get the treasure) since a simple "fight until the other side is dead" mechanic worked less well.
Your first RPGs were very much "you are in front of a dungeon, do you want to enter?" or "you are in the entrance room of the dungeon, somewhere below is a treasure. Go find it". No storyline, minimal plot, the entire focus being on nerds crunching numbers and rolling dice.
Now, people DID add storylines, plots, and increasingly complicated rules for things like magic, traps, etc... as well as the continuation of specific characters which of course required treasures to be defined, and some work put into economics when these characters spent the treasure.
It's important to understand the differance between the RPG, and the trappings tacked on.
The issue with "action RPGs" and the like is that the very nature of an "action" component means that the player's reflexs become a determining factor, rather than it being a numerical exercise based around numbers, probabilities, and chance. When you get to the point where the primary deciding factor in the outcome of situations in the game is the player's physical abillities (reflexs, reaction time, hand eye coordination) then it's no longer an RPG.
In general I believe that the proper term for most of the hybrid games we're seeing now is not "RPG" or "Action-RPG", but "Customizable Shooter" or "Customizable Brawler" since you do have some desicians to make in the course of the game, and need to choose between specific things, but ultimatly it's the player's reflexs that determine's the outcome of the combat. In a real RPG the player is more like a coach than an actual participant. That level of detachment is nessicary for something to be an RPG.
A lot of people might not like this, but that's simply how it is. It's fair to say that RPGs inspired some of these customizable action games, but they themselves are not RPGs.
[/quote]
If you have a name, a story, and a leveling system, it's an RPG.
It may also be other things, but it's an RPG.
The problem is that people act as if these definitions (RPG FPS ect.) are mutually exclusive, when you consider the most widely accepted definitions, there is a lot of overlap, technically you could have a game that's an Action RPG FPS Strategy, it wouldn't be easy to do, and I don't know why the hell you would do it, but it could be done.[/quote]
Actually that's not true at all. I received several messages saying the same thing, and I think the problem is people either not understanding what an RPG is, or not wanting to. I suspect the latter.
Stories, leveling systems, all of that is pretty much irrelevent. The first RPGs had none of those things. RPGs are totally about stat management and how it affects the outcome of things.
RPGs are the child of wargaming, with people in college getting together to similate ancient conflicts, and perhaps fight out hypothetical battles if things had happened differantly. Numbers being used to represent the relative merits of differant units, and dice to represent chance and the role it can play in warfare (ie we know a gun of a certain type is inaccurate and unreliable, so the dice represent whether or not the weapons involved will perform properly in this napoleanic-era war simulation).
What happened is people got into fighting battles on increasingly small scales, both for the sake of the price involved in purchusing (or self-casting) that many lead figures, and also due to a desire among many to focus on the tactical elements of conflicts rather than the stretegic merits. Of course as you reduced the scale, things became increasingly complicated due to it focusing on the people involved more than anything.
RPGs started when people got the idea of pretty much focusing on fights between individuals. The entire point was the creation of engines that allowed such a battle to happen mathematically without any action on the part of the people involved.
This turned into people deciding to see if they could similarly simulate fantasy warriors as opposed to just ones from history, and this of course lead to the development of dungeon crawling games as the focus on individual combat required some sort of objective (as in, get the treasure) since a simple "fight until the other side is dead" mechanic worked less well.
Your first RPGs were very much "you are in front of a dungeon, do you want to enter?" or "you are in the entrance room of the dungeon, somewhere below is a treasure. Go find it". No storyline, minimal plot, the entire focus being on nerds crunching numbers and rolling dice.
Now, people DID add storylines, plots, and increasingly complicated rules for things like magic, traps, etc... as well as the continuation of specific characters which of course required treasures to be defined, and some work put into economics when these characters spent the treasure.
It's important to understand the differance between the RPG, and the trappings tacked on.
The issue with "action RPGs" and the like is that the very nature of an "action" component means that the player's reflexs become a determining factor, rather than it being a numerical exercise based around numbers, probabilities, and chance. When you get to the point where the primary deciding factor in the outcome of situations in the game is the player's physical abillities (reflexs, reaction time, hand eye coordination) then it's no longer an RPG.
In general I believe that the proper term for most of the hybrid games we're seeing now is not "RPG" or "Action-RPG", but "Customizable Shooter" or "Customizable Brawler" since you do have some desicians to make in the course of the game, and need to choose between specific things, but ultimatly it's the player's reflexs that determine's the outcome of the combat. In a real RPG the player is more like a coach than an actual participant. That level of detachment is nessicary for something to be an RPG.
A lot of people might not like this, but that's simply how it is. It's fair to say that RPGs inspired some of these customizable action games, but they themselves are not RPGs.
You really missed the point of my statement. I am not saying it is a bad thing they share mechanics I am saying that without the games RPG mechanics all it is shooter wise is a striped down Gears rip off. If you just take the pure shooter elements that is all it really is. The RPG elements added so much depth although flow breaking to the combat in the first and in the second they striped down so many other RPG elements that made the game unique. So no I have no problem with shared mechanics but the RPG part is what makes ME unique loss that and it is just blandness.GiantRaven said:
The correct statement would be to drop all RPG elements from Dues Ex then call it CoD: Dystopian future.
-Role Playing Game
"A role-playing game (RPG) is a broad family of games in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development.[1] Actions taken within the game succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines."
It's an RPG:
*You take the role of Shepard.
*You make decisions for storyline development.
*Character development occurs if you go Paragon/Renegade.
"A role-playing game (RPG) is a broad family of games in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development.[1] Actions taken within the game succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines."
It's an RPG:
*You take the role of Shepard.
*You make decisions for storyline development.
*Character development occurs if you go Paragon/Renegade.
Mass Effect 2 is an RPG. Just because Bioware doesn't think it's a good idea to need to manage your inventory every few seconds doesn't mean the game isn't an RPG.