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RPGDot Forums > CRPGs General

Author Thread
Michael C
Black Dragon
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quote:
Originally posted by dteowner
I'm actually seeing a merge of HiddenX's questions into Michael C's framework. MC's framework score is based on an overview of different aspects of a game. I'm seeing HX's questions as a way to break a "touchy-feely" overview into specific yes/no/amount bites. It's almost a secondary framework within each category of MC's system. In looking at things, I don't see where it would work well to have the questions directly be a part of the main system.

So, for instance (and I know this needs refinement, but you get the idea), in GAMEWORLD, you answer HX's 5 questions. Free to go anywhere? Yes, so 2 points. Different societies? 2 to 4 gives 1 point. Landscapes? 5 to 10 gives 1 point. Day/night? none means 0 points. Calendar and weather? both means 2 points. Add it all up, and our example has 6 points, which means the game gets a subscore of 6 in GAMEWORLD, which will be figured in with 5 other subscores to give the RPGDot Factor for the game.


Actually I thought about a system like this, when this thread was started, and I'm not quite sure it couldn't be as good as the current system, however I had/have to reasons why i chose the current system instead.
First you must weight many details into points, and won't there be quite a lot of things you have to put scores on if you want to cover every detail like that
Second: A game could score high in one category, only because of one superb feature, maybe 200+ areas, but no life, no diversity, no seasons etc. I think a coctail with a little of this and a little of that, is necessary for the game to cover a category with it's very basic expectations. So instead I write some expectations, which neseccarily must include some level from the different features. I think it's a bit more clear, and covers more the expectations from the final score system!
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Post Fri Sep 13, 2002 11:13 am
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Michael C
Black Dragon
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quote:
Originally posted by Arhu
Addendum to CHARACTER

Maybe it would be best to split this category into "Character Creation" and "Character Development", and make each sub-category contribute 50% to "Character". Character creation would include everything you can change before actually playing the game, like stats, skills, look, basically the whole customization stuff. Character development is only about what you can change while playing. I reason that this would be easier and 'more accurate' than deciding for yourself where the borderline is.


I see your point, but I'm not convinced regarding making two groups. Sure we get more detailed informations about the game.But too many categories also make the conclussion it more unclear, and giving them both only 50% importants don't make the information more clear. The 6 groups now, are already many IMHO, and as I see them quite equally important features for a CRPG. I blended the character creation and character development together, and made some issues from both in the 6 frames under "CHARACTER" category. Character creation is only about replay value, and party differences, which is a nice feature to have in a CRPG, but even without, the roleplaying could be very good if the development of the character is very interesting. The other way around is also possible, but very difficult to make working satisfactorily.
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Post Fri Sep 13, 2002 11:29 am
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Michael C
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quote:
Originally posted by Windwalking
quote:
Originally posted by HiddenX
@Windwalking

Because of the limit of computer memory and the limited software development time a crpg will never be true 'open-ended' like a pen&paper game.
In spite of this I would give a game with many different pathes and some different endings a '5' in the story category.

As I understand Michael C a rating '5' stands for 'heavy rpg' - a rpg covering all elements. It is not the 'best' or 'perfect' rpg - it should be a neutral objective rating.

A '5'-rated game is maybe a 'perfect' rpg for you and me, because our personal preference are 'heavy rpgs'. For a person that likes Diablo most, rpgs with a rating of '1' up to '2' would be the 'perfect' rpg.


Sorry if I didn't make this clear, but I'm not saying that a "5" in story means it's a perfect RPG in terms of how good it is; I'm saying that a "5" in story should mean truly open-ended, which only pen and paper RPGs manage to accomplish.

Although I agree that a "5" story CRPG is impossible right now, it may indeed be possible years from now, if a good enough artificial intelligence is created. That's why I think we should let story "5" have the requirement of being truly open-ended; no computer game right now achieves this, but in the future it may be possible.

- Wind


I agree that no one of the todays CRPG's could fulfill the demand "fully open ended story", and there will probably still be many years before we see one, but we may be satisfied if we find a game that meets lets say 10+ different endings, and every 10+ endings must surely be the consequences of many decisions made during the game, and not only during the last 5 minutes of gameplay!
Another discussion is that I'm not sure that P&P's in general would score 5 points in every category per default, even the best of them would have a hard time of scoring max in every category!
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Post Fri Sep 13, 2002 11:43 am
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Ariel
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The new system looks good so far, and I have no comment regarding your other comments . So then, how about testing V0.3 on some games? The last list ist still from V0.1 and kind of dated.. It would be nice if everyone could do a few games and give a short reason for the ratings in each category.
But before that, I would like to comment on the secondary categories.

'Graphics', in its current form, is unnecessary and out of place IMO. Graphics are very subjective, and so dynamic over time that a game with "groundbreaking" or "up to date" graphics will soon be among the lower standard. The core system seems very timeless, it works with old, new and future games, and could very well be valid in years to come. But what we would rate today in Graphics is not true anymore tomorrow. To this effect, I would replace the Graphics category with a more objective criterium like "Persepective" (see below).
In my opinion, all Other Categories should be timeless, too, and as objective as possible.

Length is intersting, but quite difficult to judge. Is it the time you need to finish a game if you follow only the main story, or if you do everything in terms of quests? Depending on their style of play, players need lots of time or almost no time to finish a game. I've heard of people powergame through Morrowind in a matter of a few days... Besides that, I never have any idea how many hours I play certain games. I just play them, and eventually I'm through.

Difficulty.. Mmmm, no opinion on this one.


Well, I thought a bit about "Character Identification", an important part of immersion, and came up with the following secondary categories, all of which I think are of considerable interest to RPGers. Actually, I would even go as far as calling them "Secondary RPG Elements", as they work very similar to the core system. Here they are:


PERSPECTIVE:
(This could replace Graphics. I don't know a name for the Tomb Raider view, so I just called it "shoulder perspective))

0: no perspective (e.g. no graphics)
1: 2D, fixed isometric or bird's eye view
2: 2D or 3D, fixed isometric or bird's eye view, and/or it's possible to customize the perspective or camera (e.g. zoom/turn)
3: 3D, shoulder perspective, focused on one character
4: 3D, shoulder perspective, but First Person is also available
5: 3D, first person


CHARACTER FOCUS:
(The amount of characters you can control directly)

0: Party
1: Party, but there is a main/focus character
2: Party, but it's also possible to play with only one character (must be able to complete the whole game without major hassles!), or party members have life of their own
3: Single Character, NPCs can not join you
4: Single Character, NPCs can join you for a limited amount of time and help you competently
5: Single Character, NPCs can join you to form a party


MULTIPLAYER:
(SP = Single Player, MP = Multi Player, PvP = Player vs. Player)

0: SP
1: SP/MP, only PvP in MP
2: SP/MP, Cooperative play available, but players are 'tied' to each other (e.g.: only one player can talk or they can only visit other areas as a group)
3: SP/MP, Cooperative play available, players have more freedom and can interact with each other in various ways (chat, exchange items...)
4: SP/MP, > 8 players can play in the same session and interact with each other
5: MP, lots of players can take part in the same session and there are more players than NPCs, lots of freedom for each player (form parties with others, fight against enemies, trading, travelling etc.)


Two sample Games:

Baldur's Gate
Perspective: 1 (fixed isometric)
Character Focus: 2 (party based, possible to play with only one character in MP)
Multiplayer: 2

Morrowind
Perspective: 4 (shoulder or first person)
Character Focus: 3 (you control one character) (or 4?)
Multiplayer: 0 (only SP)

[edit]Changed point 2 in Character Focus to include mDrop's comment below this post[/edit]
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Last edited by Ariel on Fri Sep 13, 2002 9:03 pm; edited 2 times in total
Post Fri Sep 13, 2002 5:02 pm
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mDrop
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@Arhu, three things.

I don't think that the perspective can be rated, since everyone has their preferences. 1st person 3D in the most immersive, but it is not necessarily the best one. Ignore this if you didn't mean to rate it from the worst to best, just state out the different styles.

Second, maybe one thing should be added to character focus, the interaction inside your group. One of the best things in BG-series and Fallouts is the fact that member of your party have their own opinions and characters. Controlling a party full of "living" NPCs is a lot nicer than just dragging along a bunch of drones.

Third, the PC/NPC ratio is not necessarily an meter of goodness. For example, NWN should have more NPCs than players, atleast in single, non-persistent modules, to create the illusion of a living world.
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Post Fri Sep 13, 2002 6:25 pm
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Ariel
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mDrop: ~I don't think that the perspective can be rated, since everyone has their preferences. 1st person 3D in the most immersive, but it is not necessarily the best one. Ignore this if you didn't mean to rate it from the worst to best, just state out the different styles.~
Ignoring then. From a perspective's point of view (ahem), first person is the most immersive, but players' preferences may vary, so I agree with you.

~Second, maybe one thing should be added to character focus, the interaction inside your group.~
Sounds reasonable.

~Third, the PC/NPC ratio is not necessarily an meter of goodness. For example, NWN should have more NPCs than players, atleast in single, non-persistent modules, to create the illusion of a living world.~
Note that point 5 is actually _only_ multiplayer, e.g. MMORPGs; Neverwinter Nights would only get 4 points. That said, you may still be right that the "PC/NPC ratio" is not that good a requirement. Dunno.. I just thought it would be a usual feature of MMORPGs - reasoning that real players are 'deeper' than scripted NPCs.

IMO, the entire system should not rate a game in the usual sense, as was stated before. The highest score does not mean that a game is better than others in a given category, only that it is different. A user can choose individually what he prefers. That's also another reason why I think the Graphics category is out of place - essentially it is a rating in the common sense, from good to bad, with 0 points being the worst and 5 points being the best. You can't say "I like bad graphics better than good graphics, because...". Nobody really prefers bad graphics over good ones.

Anyway, I'll let MC do the final adjustments, it's his system after all.
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Post Fri Sep 13, 2002 7:24 pm
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dteowner
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I'll take a better look at Arhu's stuff later tonight, but right off the top I notice there's no spot for 2D first person, ala the M&M series. Surely an oversight...
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Post Sat Sep 14, 2002 1:09 am
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Ariel
Harmonious Angel
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Nope, not really. First person is 3D, regardless of whether it's accelerated or not. It's all about perspective , not about quality. MM would get 5 points here.

Maybe the terms "2D" and "3D" are a bit misleading because of today's automatic but in this case false assumption that "3D = 3D accelerated" and "2D = prerendered", but that's why there are examples on the right side.

Another example, the opposite of MM: Warcraft 3 is 3D accelerated, but has a fixed top-down view, hence its perspective is 2D.
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Post Sat Sep 14, 2002 1:32 am
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HiddenX
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Another additional category could be the overall game-difficulty - many modern games offer no challenge at all IMHO.

0: let your Grandma play
1: for Kids
2: easy
3: moderate
4: hard
5: Nightmare

Have we included the economic system somewhere ?
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Post Sat Sep 14, 2002 8:56 am
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Jaz
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Hmmm. I though 3D = poly models and 2D = sprites...
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Post Sat Sep 14, 2002 1:36 pm
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Ariel
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Jaz: nag nag nag
I knew someone would say this. Yes, technically speaking there is a difference between sprites and "true three dimensional" objects. For instance, some call Doom like games "2.5D" because of this, but that is irrelevant here, since you are still experiencing the game from within your character. Allllll right, I'll rewrite this "Perspective" thingy, hope it's clearer then:

PERSPECTIVE:
(I don't know a name for the Tomb Raider view, so I just called it "shoulder perspective")

0: no perspective (e.g. no graphics)
1: fixed top-down view (e.g. isometric, cabinet or bird's eye view)
2: top-down view, it's possible to customize the perspective or camera (e.g. zoom/turn)
3: shoulder perspective (ala Tomb Raider: the camera hovers right over the character, it's possible to look skywards)
4: shoulder perspective and first person are both available
5: first person only


HiddenX: I like the gameplay difficulty idea. I think it's more "open" towards different challenges (tactical, brain game, ..) than the other difficulty category, which seems to be focused on the interface. But I would keep one naming style. Given that we are talking about RPGs, players with more experience in this genre will find it easier than newbies, and this is something that could be rated. Let your Grandma play, for kids, ..., advanced, ..., professionals. Come to think of it, the classic German game mag Power Play rated games like this (for beginners, for advancers, for professionals). I recall that Wizardry 7 was for professionals...
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Post Sat Sep 14, 2002 2:47 pm
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dteowner
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It would seem to me that the descriptions for 4 and 5 should be switched, since 2 possible modes would be better than just one, particularly since "first person" is included in "shoulder or first person".
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Post Sat Sep 14, 2002 3:12 pm
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Ariel
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I had thought about that, too, but again the system is about RPG elements or personal preference, not about how good or bad something is. Certainly it's better for a wider range of player types if they can choose their own style of play, some like first person, some like to see their character to get a feel for his look or be more tactical when it comes to fighting, others like both. But in terms of roleplaying, I think that the farther away the camera is from the character(s), the more 'detached' you are, degraded to a more observing role. In other words: In top-down or shoulder view you play your character, whereas in first person view you are your character. I think this is even true if you control a whole party in first person - it is still you who is acting in the world.

Now if you can play both in first person and shoulder mode, it's more immersive than just shoulder view, because you can alternatively slip directly into your character if you choose so, but it's not as immersive as only first person, since you can still detach yourself to some degree by moving out of character.

Lastly, one minor but nevertheless important thing: "first person" is included in "shoulder or first person", that's true, but it is not included in "shoulder and first person"..
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Post Sun Sep 15, 2002 3:41 pm
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Myrthos
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quote:
Originally posted by Arhu
(I don't know a name for the Tomb Raider view, so I just called it "shoulder perspective")
Well I don't recall that I was looking over Lara's shoulders How about calling it 3rd person view.
That said I always wondered what 2nd person view is supposed to be
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Post Sun Sep 15, 2002 9:32 pm
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dteowner
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quote:
Originally posted by Arhu
I had thought about that, too, but again the system is about RPG elements or personal preference, not about how good or bad something is.
Agreed, but any time you assign a rating system, people will assume a higher score reflects a better game. For that matter, we are saying that a higher score means a game is closer to a true RPG, which pretty well implies something about the quality.
quote:
Originally posted by Arhu
Lastly, one minor but nevertheless important thing: "first person" is included in "shoulder or first person", that's true, but it is not included in "shoulder and first person"..
While I'm on the same side of the 1st/3rd person argument as you, I've seen some pretty valid arguments from people that favor the control of 3rd person. So what defines a "true RPG": immersion in the world or total control of your character? I'm not sure I could say someone's wrong for voting different from us. That's why I still think that an option is always better than no choice.
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Post Sun Sep 15, 2002 11:15 pm
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