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Calis
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 41
Location: Holland |
From Chaerea's editorial:
quote:
Don’t make the excuse of ‘we’re too far down the track now for any real revolution.’ That’s just muddy thinking. There are plenty of ways to revolutionize this genre, it just takes effort and some original thinking.
Excuse me?
We've had it all. Linear/non-linear. Action or dialogue. All that's left to do is think up new stories, new settings, and perhaps improve the technology side of things. Yes, you can always expand, make the game world more responsive, but that doesn't count as "revolution" in my book.
Personally, I don't need revolution. I just want RPG's with adequate graphics and either a nicely-scripted world with lots of ways to complete quests, or an awesome storyline. The NPC's need to be convincing, and the way quests are presented needs to be convincing as well. Nothing revolutionary about that. Both Fallouts pulled it off, Torment pulled it off (although it was too linear, it had a great story and I've always been a sucker for the Planescape setting) and Arcanum pulled it off.
Exactly what kind of "revolution" are you looking for?
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http://torment.sorcerers.net
http://www.rpgcodex.com |
Thu Oct 11, 2001 4:53 pm |
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Rendelius
Critical Error
Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 16
Location: Austria |
The question wasn't posed to me, but I know something I would call revolutionary: Freefrom RPGs, a living, breathing world, where you don't have to follow a story, but where you create one whilst playing.
I know that is a little bit hard to explain  - but think of this: revolutions bear something within themselves: until they happen, few people knew what they would be.
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Rendelius
former Senior Editor RPGDot
now at http://www.theastronomers.com |
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Thu Oct 11, 2001 5:05 pm |
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Calis
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 41
Location: Holland |
quote:
I know something I would call revolutionary: Freefrom RPGs, a living, breathing world, where you don't have to follow a story, but where you create one whilst playing.
We're talking about computer RPG's here. That means that the game will either be very formulaic, or a very random dungeon hack. Personally, I'm looking for neither.
_________________
http://www.terra-arcanum.com
http://torment.sorcerers.net
http://www.rpgcodex.com |
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Thu Oct 11, 2001 5:16 pm |
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Rendelius
Critical Error
Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 16
Location: Austria |
Well, it wouldn't, because it would be revolutionary . You and I can now only imagine it would be formulaic or a dungeon hack, but I think that someone will come up with a solution on how it wouldn't be that way. And that would be revolutionary
_________________
Rendelius
former Senior Editor RPGDot
now at http://www.theastronomers.com |
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Thu Oct 11, 2001 5:30 pm |
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Stiletto
God Emperor
Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 312
Location: Orlando, Florida |
I don't know if he is seeing your point Ren. Back in the 80's PC were awesome, you could do anything with a PC. They had loads of RAM, 640KB, more than anyone would ever need! Innovations come, and no one expected them. They come in many forms. How about NPC's that really think for themselves? That would be quite revolutionary. Instead of following a script, actually thinking and doing what they want when they want. A world that has no quest, just lives and changes day to day like any real life world. Like he said, if we knew what the next big step was, we should be writing games.
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Stiletto
God Emperor |
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Thu Oct 11, 2001 7:56 pm |
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Rendelius
Critical Error
Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 16
Location: Austria |
Talking about innovative ideas: I always dream of a game (I would call it "spectator") where you can move freely through a village like a ghost. In this village, a murder has happened. You start the game seeing somebody finding a dead body. There are about 100+ citizens there, each and everyone going after his own agenda. Your goal is to find out what has happened. This would be like a movie, but all "actors" have a fully scripted life. The fun in this game would be to watch them all, finding clues, blind leads, personal stories... I know quite some people would find that boring, but from a writers view this would be a hell of a job *g*
_________________
Rendelius
former Senior Editor RPGDot
now at http://www.theastronomers.com |
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Thu Oct 11, 2001 8:41 pm |
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HiddenX
The Elder Spy
Joined: 20 Jul 2001
Posts: 749
Location: NRW / Germany |
I don't need a rpg revolution, but i would like to see some features in ONE game that i have seen in different games before:
# The dialoges of Planescape Torment
# The party member interaction of Jagged Alliance
# environment presentation of Gothic
# environment interaction of Ultima 7
# strategic round based fighting of Wizardry 7
# only getting better in skills u really use - Daggerfall
# fun of Fallout 1
# non Linearity - Daggerfall
# Epic Story - Baldurs Gate 2 / Betrayal at Krondor / Albion / Exile Series
# Dungeon Feeling - Dungeon Master / Wizards and Warriors
# tough quests / Bards Tale 2
# armor weapon making / Evil Islands
Hx |
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Thu Oct 11, 2001 10:08 pm |
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Rangstrom
Head Merchant
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 58
Location: USA |
I was going to say that at least with sequels most of the worst bugs are out of the engine and the game won't eat your harddrive--then I remembered Myth2.(oh well).
Actually if the first game is good, another helping is ok with me. And the feature I like best is alternative solutions. Many games from Dragon Wars to Fallout to Deus Ex have done this well. To me having lots of ways through a situation feels like the design is giving you credit for being able to think. |
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Fri Oct 12, 2001 8:38 pm |
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Maggot
Magister of the Light
Joined: 17 Jul 2001
Posts: 392
Location: Reykjavik, Iceland |
I don't mind sequels all that much. If the original was good, and I spent some tens of hours playing (I hate games you finish in 10 hours), I don't mind getting more of the same. It's a safer bet, to buy a sequel to a game you know was good, than buy a game you've only read reviews for, IMHO.
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Mon Oct 15, 2001 10:23 am |
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chaerea
Village Dweller
Joined: 18 Oct 2001
Posts: 3
Location: Australia |
Calis, thanks for commenting.
I have to submit though that you are guilty of the muddy thinking I was referring to. Right now in CRPGs we are stuck in a rut. We have isometric blah or graphical MUDs, that's it. It won't take a huge shift to inject some life back into the genre.
'Incremental advance' might have been a more accurate term. Let's take the example of Ultima V to VI. Note Ultima sequels were generally 'good' they moved both the series and the genre forward. At the time of Ultima V the CRPG was in a user wondow rut. All games were a top down view that shfited scale depending on where you were. One scale for towns, one for the countryside, another for combat, no matter where you were.
Ultima VI changed this. It's single scale, seamless transfer from town to coutnryside to dungeon to tavern to combat was a revoultion (or, if you prefer, incremental advance). It shook both the players and the industry. U7 took this single scale to the next level, and remained alone until Baldur's Gate.
Now, single-scale is ubiquitous. As gamers, we don't even notice it any more.
It is changes like this, made by designers with some vision, that move the genre forward.
I didn't suggest any possible revolutionary moves in the article, because I didn't want to write a description of 'my perfect game' as that would have been a great article for me to read, but no one else.
What will the next revolution be? I don't know (have a wish list) but I am optiistic enough to feel it will happen.
Arcanum was good, it was interesting to see what happens to the isometric RPG when developed by a non-Western team. Ideology based classes, love it, just like Alpha Centauri 
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My spelling is fine, it's my typing that's terrible. |
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Thu Oct 18, 2001 9:45 am |
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Guest
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Yes, but my main point is that taking about innovation like this is oversimplifying the issue, at best. Rend's idea of a game generating a story based on user actions, for instance, is just the current generation of CRPG's with a (lot) more reactive game world: better scripting, better AI. His example could be construed as "revolutionary" because it's such a big step compared to today's RPGs, because of technical reasons.
As for your example, I'd hardly call that revolutionary in any way (although using the term "incremental advance" does change the issue somewhat, for me, at least). They presented the game world in a more detailed way. Why'd they do that? Because people were buying larger harddrives. This gave the developers the necessary space to work out the rest of the game world fully instead of having to resort to scaling (or tuning down the amount of detail). It's true, Origin was the first developer to do this, but that is because they were always pushing the technological envelope back then: they were making games only people with the latest hardware could play. For their time, they were far worse than, say, ID Software.
I'd say the extra amounts of scripting in Arcanum, which has a far more reactive game world than, say, Fallout, was as big of a step. The same thing goes for the way Torment managed to mix past and present of your character into one grand story.
My point is that it's not hard to think of improvements, but that complaining about a lack of them is useless at best and shows a lack of understanding about the process of game development at worst.
All you're really saying is "We need a revolution", or "we need another advancement of the genre, because today's games aren't doing it enough".
If I were the editor of this site, I wouldn't have published an article like this, at least not without a bit more work. Sorry man, but as it is, the editorial is a shallow, useless piece of net static. Adding the main points of your post on this forum would change that somewhat, IMO, but it still doesn't contain a detailed (enough) analysis of the subject for it to be called an "editorial", IMO.
But no need to listen to me of course, I'm just an arrogant, pot-smoking college kid who likes to pretend he's an expert because he wrote a few articles for other sites. |
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Thu Oct 18, 2001 3:49 pm |
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Calis
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 41
Location: Holland |
Um, Anonymous = me... forgot to login.
Get that persistent login working, dammit!
Oh, and:
quote:
My point is that it's not hard to think of improvements, but that complaining about a lack of them is useless at best and shows a lack of understanding about the process of game development at worst.
Ignore that paragraph. I was editing my post a bit and this paragraph no longer has a real point to it...
[ This Message was edited by: Calis on 2001-10-18 10:52 ] |
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Thu Oct 18, 2001 3:49 pm |
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chaerea
Village Dweller
Joined: 18 Oct 2001
Posts: 3
Location: Australia |
Calis, I can only assume yu weren't playing RPGs when Ultima VI hit the shelves. It blew people away, and Ultima VII did the same thing a bit better. It was a revolution. No one's looking for a new genre here, but a new way of looking at RPGs is needed.
As to hard drives, Ultima VII took up 50-100% of the space of a typical hard drive when it was released. I remember buying a 386 with the 'undeard of' HD size of 120MB. The complete U7 would take up more than half of that!
As to the quality or lack thereof in my articles, you a free to comment as you wish. I would be interested in reading your past library, which sites should I visit? |
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Fri Oct 19, 2001 10:24 am |
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Calis
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 41
Location: Holland |
quote:
Calis, I can only assume yu weren't playing RPGs when Ultima VI hit the shelves. It blew people away, and Ultima VII did the same thing a bit better. It was a revolution. No one's looking for a new genre here, but a new way of looking at RPGs is needed.
And I'm saying they weren't blowing people away because they were in any way revolutionary, but because they were masterfully executed (although I didn't play much of u6... it was before my time)
quote:
As to hard drives, Ultima VII took up 50-100% of the space of a typical hard drive when it was released. I remember buying a 386 with the 'undeard of' HD size of 120MB. The complete U7 would take up more than half of that!
Yes, that's my point... the revolutionary aspect of U7 was, for a large part, caused by technological advances.
quote:
As to the quality or lack thereof in my articles, you a free to comment as you wish. I would be interested in reading your past library, which sites should I visit?
I don't think your articles are bad as such, I just think subjects like this deserve a (well) more thorough analysis. I've read editorials like this before, and it's true that very little of them manage to get past the points that you've made, but with a site like RPGDot, I really felt a need to comment.
As for my articles, they were up at GA-RPG and later eUniverseGames, but both these sites are very, very dead. I have them all on my harddrive somewhere, I think (and yes, some of them suck balls). |
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Fri Oct 19, 2001 10:42 am |
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Jay
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 245
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Great Discussion. I have my own ideas, and hope to add them later when I have some time. I agree more with Calis, but thats me.
As for the list of perfect game, for me it would be the Graphics of Ultima 9, gameplay and size of Ultima 7. That would be the ultimate RPG. |
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Sat Oct 20, 2001 4:06 pm |
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