The Problem with RPG's

[Shamgarr]

Hey, so I've been playing a couple games lately like Bully, that are free roaming RPG's. Basically it stands behind the "go anywhere, do anything" mindset of something like GTA, which are the same developers. In all these games, though, I have noticed a few issues that really should have been addressed from the get-go.

1) The first thing a player is going to want to do is go out and kill/pelvic thrust at everything that breathes. This works quite well in sillier games such as Saints Row, but if a developer was trying to make a serious game, this completely ruins the experience. This being said, I don't want the game to hold me on a leash and make sure I'm a good boy, but I definately want to have the freedom to play the game how I want.

2) This is more specific to games such as Bully, or maybe some of the newer Harry Potter games (technically free roaming RPG's), and it's on the issue of classes. For a game thats based on school, they surely have captured it's distinct feel: repetitive and monotonous. Often times there just simple mini games, that's only benefit is boosting one of your stats, which takes the fun out of level grinding all together.

What other problems have you noticed in Free Roaming RPG's? And how would you adress these specific problems I have mentioned?

 

[Cherry Cola]

Kill everything that breathes?... I'm down with that. DEVELOPERS, MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!

I want the epic feeling that I'm a lone wanderer going around helping the people, mysterious and without identity. Fallout 3 did this, but they messed it up by giving me an origin story. I'd actually like it if I was just cast into the shoes of a guy walking around, going to villages, being totally badass, and then leaving. And of course the map would be big enough so that I would never have to revisit it.

 

[WrongSprite]

What other problems have you noticed in Free Roaming RPG's? And how would you adress these specific problems I have mentioned?

Yeah I only noticed one problem: They suck (Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Two Worlds, Fable)
I kinda liked Gothic 1+2 and Risen though xD

You said Morrowind sucks...

No longer what you post on the Escapist now, I will never accept your opinion ever again XD

OT: It's all about variety. Thats what Morrowind did well funny enough. There's no point in having a big open world, if none of it's interesting.

 

[Cherry Cola]

What other problems have you noticed in Free Roaming RPG's? And how would you adress these specific problems I have mentioned?

Yeah I only noticed one problem: They suck (Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Two Worlds, Fable)
I kinda liked Gothic 1+2 and Risen though xD

You are now dead to me, unknown user of the Escapist.

 

[Abedeus]

Did someone say Morrowind, Fallout 3 or Oblivion suck?

 

[Shamgarr]

To solve two of my own points, and provide some more thought, I would only gradually give the player any real control over the people and world around him. This being said, I'm hoping by the time they do have the ability to kill someone, they will either care too much about the npc's, or their save file to mess it up by simply messing around.

Or, maybe I'd even make some fun out of it, like GTA did. In fact, that's pretty much all I did with my friends when we'd play San Andreas. We'd get a bunch of weapons and see who could commit the most crimes and not get caught or killed. Of course, you wouldn't be able to get very far in the beginning, but by the end you could almost take over the city.

 

[Ironwampa]

Shamgarr, none of the games you mentioned are RPGs. They're all action adventure. So I guess the problem with sand box style RPGs like GTA are that they're not necessarily RPGS.

 

[Lexodus]

Skies of Arcadia and the first Tales of Symphonia did it right (the second had it's budget slashed in a stupid move, so they removed free roam).

 

[Heart of Darkness]

1) Over-generalization much? Not every player is like that.

2) Level grinding is fun? At least some minigames break the repetition.

The only problem I have with free-roaming RPGs is the generally weak main story. That's speaking generally, though.

 

[SonicKoala]

What other problems have you noticed in Free Roaming RPG's? And how would you adress these specific problems I have mentioned?

Yeah I only noticed one problem: They suck (Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Two Worlds, Fable)
It's like trying to recreate the real world, it gets boring and tedious and most characters are uninteresting standardized NPC#x, a story mostly non-existent or extremely thin...

I kinda liked Gothic 1+2 and Risen though (it had a focus more on the game-world and the characters and felt more like a "breathing" thing than the other mentioned ones) xD

Oblivion sucks? Fallout 3 sucks? My inner gamer just went haywire on your ass.

With that out of the way,I may not agree with what you say sir, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

 

[Arbitrary Cidin]

GTA follows the story of a cold-hearted, war-torn, crime-minded sociopath; nothing you could possibly do constitutes as offset from the storyline.

Also, I have a feeling you were just watching ZP. Plus, your title is misleading. An RPG is a ROleplaying Game, not a sandbox with "too much" freedom.

 

[Acidwell]

Your first point makes very little sense. You want complete freedom but you give out that all YOU do when given it is kill people. The decision to go and kill/pelvic thrust everything is yours and yours alone the developers didnt make you do it.

2. I believe you said that mini games "Take the fun out of level grinding." What fun?
With the mini-games in bully they were easy and took about 3 minutes of time and then you could go off and do the fun and varied story missions or mess around in the game world.
(And i know one guy already said it but most of the games you mentioned are not rpgs)
Edit point 2 ninja'd

 

[Spiner909]

Well, as great as Fallout 3 and Oblivion were, they rely too much on numbers and level instead of skills. Borderlands did a pretty good job of balancing that, until the high levels where you can literally shoot 10 rockets into a brute's head and he loses 1/2 hp. Don't even get me started about the 2nd playthrough.

In conclusion, Bio Ware is supreme at RPGS. Just play Mass Effect.

 

[FallenJellyDoughnut]

What other problems have you noticed in Free Roaming RPG's? And how would you adress these specific problems I have mentioned?

Yeah I only noticed one problem: They suck (Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Two Worlds, Fable)
I kinda liked Gothic 1+2 and Risen though xD

You said Morrowind sucks...

No longer what you post on the Escapist now, I will never accept your opinion ever again XD

OT: It's all about variety. Thats what Morrowind did well funny enough. There's no point in having a big open world, if none of it's interesting.

Morrowind would be better if it where less brown and with less ash storms.

 

[spacepope22]

My problem with the so called "free-roaming RPG" is that there are large areas that you can't enter for a large portion of the game.

An example would be GTA (pick any one of them, since they're all the same.)If I want to go to another island, then i should be able to go to another island. Even if my opponents have better weapons, it should not matter. I mean, a bullet to the head will kill anyone, even if they have a AK-47 and I have a Glock-9.

 

[TheSupremeForce]

"Free Roaming" seems to invariably come at the expense of "strong story". That's my problem. I'd rather feel railroaded by an engaging plot than be able to do whatever I want to do inside a "story" that's so weak I can't be bothered to care.

 

[Acaroid]

Hey, so I've been playing a couple games lately like Bully, that are free roaming RPG's. Basically it stands behind the "go anywhere, do anything" mindset of something like GTA, which are the same developers. In all these games, though, I have noticed a few issues that really should have been addressed from the get-go.

1) The first thing a player is going to want to do is go out and kill/pelvic thrust at everything that breathes. This works quite well in sillier games such as Saints Row, but if a developer was trying to make a serious game, this completely ruins the experience. This being said, I don't want the game to hold me on a leash and make sure I'm a good boy, but I definately want to have the freedom to play the game how I want.

2) This is more specific to games such as Bully, or maybe some of the newer Harry Potter games (technically free roaming RPG's), and it's on the issue of classes. For a game thats based on school, they surely have captured it's distinct feel: repetitive and monotonous. Often times there just simple mini games, that's only benefit is boosting one of your stats, which takes the fun out of level grinding all together.

What other problems have you noticed in Free Roaming RPG's? And how would you adress these specific problems I have mentioned?

It is easy, make it not worth your time/effort killing people.

people in gta and saintsrow type games kill people cause they can and is easy. If they didnt make it worth your time, then people would stop doing it...

You can still have to choice, but you have to balance up yourself is it worth it?

 

[Gyrefalcon]

Hey, so I've been playing a couple games lately like Bully, that are free roaming RPG's. Basically it stands behind the "go anywhere, do anything" mindset of something like GTA, which are the same developers. In all these games, though, I have noticed a few issues that really should have been addressed from the get-go.

1) The first thing a player is going to want to do is go out and kill/pelvic thrust at everything that breathes. This works quite well in sillier games such as Saints Row, but if a developer was trying to make a serious game, this completely ruins the experience. This being said, I don't want the game to hold me on a leash and make sure I'm a good boy, but I definately want to have the freedom to play the game how I want.

2) This is more specific to games such as Bully, or maybe some of the newer Harry Potter games (technically free roaming RPG's), and it's on the issue of classes. For a game thats based on school, they surely have captured it's distinct feel: repetitive and monotonous. Often times there just simple mini games, that's only benefit is boosting one of your stats, which takes the fun out of level grinding all together.

What other problems have you noticed in Free Roaming RPG's? And how would you adress these specific problems I have mentioned?

Sooooo-you don't like it when they give you the freedom to do whatever you want because it breaks the mood of the game when YOU decide to do something silly, but you don't want that sort of feature removed because you don't want to be on a leash. So what DO you want then? O-o

If you want to try the original RPG's you might get some books for one of the table top game systems and some dice and see how that works for you. There is a different feel to be sure, but because every game has a setting, you really don't tend to escape choosing a class or role. But if you are specifically referring to the classroom classes with Harry Potter...you might try the Persona series. The daytime classes and actions actually affect what happens during the evening battles. Either way there are at least a few options to get a different experience than you've had so far.

 

[WrongSprite]

What other problems have you noticed in Free Roaming RPG's? And how would you adress these specific problems I have mentioned?

Yeah I only noticed one problem: They suck (Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Two Worlds, Fable)
I kinda liked Gothic 1+2 and Risen though xD

You said Morrowind sucks...

No longer what you post on the Escapist now, I will never accept your opinion ever again XD

OT: It's all about variety. Thats what Morrowind did well funny enough. There's no point in having a big open world, if none of it's interesting.

Morrowind would be better if it where less brown and with less ash storms.

Thats only a relatively small section of the map.

Explore more.

 

[Shamgarr]

Hey, so I've been playing a couple games lately like Bully, that are free roaming RPG's. Basically it stands behind the "go anywhere, do anything" mindset of something like GTA, which are the same developers. In all these games, though, I have noticed a few issues that really should have been addressed from the get-go.

1) The first thing a player is going to want to do is go out and kill/pelvic thrust at everything that breathes. This works quite well in sillier games such as Saints Row, but if a developer was trying to make a serious game, this completely ruins the experience. This being said, I don't want the game to hold me on a leash and make sure I'm a good boy, but I definately want to have the freedom to play the game how I want.

2) This is more specific to games such as Bully, or maybe some of the newer Harry Potter games (technically free roaming RPG's), and it's on the issue of classes. For a game thats based on school, they surely have captured it's distinct feel: repetitive and monotonous. Often times there just simple mini games, that's only benefit is boosting one of your stats, which takes the fun out of level grinding all together.

What other problems have you noticed in Free Roaming RPG's? And how would you adress these specific problems I have mentioned?

It is easy, make it not worth your time/effort killing people.

people in gta and saintsrow type games kill people cause they can and is easy. If they didnt make it worth your time, then people would stop doing it...

You can still have to choice, but you have to balance up yourself is it worth it?

People that play RPG's will go out of there way to be dicks, thats probably the first thing they try. I'm looking at this from a developing standpoint: how should they offer free will, while making sure the player doesn't fuck it all up?