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Dorgan Maelstrom
Village Dweller
Joined: 03 Dec 2003
Posts: 10
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In the last little while I have noticed a lot of great games coming from Germany, the gothics, spellforce, to name a few. There seems to be a very strong rpg base there, has anyone else noticed this? I already know a fair bit of german and if there really is a strong rpg base there it might be worth learning it fluently. Anyone know anything about this?
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Tue Dec 09, 2003 5:48 am |
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Gorath
Mostly Harmless
Joined: 03 Sep 2001
Posts: 6327
Location: NRW, Germany |
I´m not quite sure what you mean with 'RPG base'. Some more RPGs are in development: Sacred, The Fall, Restricted Area, Gothic 3, SpellForce add-on have all been announced.
More interesting games than ever before are created in other genres.
Usually all games are also released in English, so it´s not necessary to learn German for gaming.
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Sun Dec 14, 2003 8:56 am |
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MageofFire
Griller of Molerats
Joined: 03 Oct 2003
Posts: 1594
Location: Monastery of Innos |
All hail German game developers, for their games kick our games' ***es (except Half-Life and Half-Life 2)!
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Sun Dec 14, 2003 3:47 pm |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
Looking to get the overstatement of the year award?
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Sun Dec 14, 2003 7:46 pm |
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TheLonePaladin
Mighty Warrior
Joined: 27 Feb 2002
Posts: 1808
Location: San Francisco, CA |
its not an overstatement! at least they do more than crappy cookie cutter games, which is all american game makers seem to be able to turn out lately.
granted i've only played the gothics...but man are those games friggin awesome! 
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Wed Dec 24, 2003 8:50 am |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
I agree, German and European Games generally beat most American games Hands Down!! Don't forget, the best NA game developer, Bioware, is Canadian!!
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Wed Dec 24, 2003 11:30 am |
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Korplem
Swashbuckler
Joined: 23 Dec 2002
Posts: 853
Location: Pearl Harbor, HI |
I'm afraid to admit it but there havnt been many (any?) decent rpgs from America lately. Fallout 3 might have been but we'll never know.
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Wed Dec 24, 2003 11:40 am |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
I seem to remember Freelancer being a pretty good game. At least I enjoyed it. I actually finished it, I liked it so much. That's more than I can say for NWN.
I liked Wizardry 8 (Canadian, not German) as well, despite it's failings.
Who won game of year or RPG of the year last year on practically every single website including RPGDot? That would be Morrowind. Not only did it do extremely well in it's native market, it did extremely well in foreign markets as well. Something that Arx, Gothic and Divine Divinity failed to do. Dungeon Siege probably sold more units than they did, despite what you people wish. And believe it or not, dollars speak louder than whining.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Gothic and Divine Divinity (Arx can roast for all I care), but they were not the only good games on the market last year. Simply because you put them on a pedestal and worship them does not mean that everyone else does.
This year was sparse on CRPGs. There was Gothic 2, Lionheart, ToEE and KotOR. Slim pickings. There were a lot of other CRPGs, in fact, the game I enjoyed most out of this year's crop of CRPGs was a little known game called Geneforge 2. A real CRPG like the Ultimas of yesteryear. Unlike many games today in which developers feel the urge to add in elements of other genres in an attempt to make their game sound interesting.
Reality check please. 
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Wed Dec 24, 2003 12:31 pm |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
DS is NOT an RPG, it just pretends to be!! MW is BORING, but it had a big marketing dept and lots of hype which is one thing you Yanks are good at. All the European games had distribution problems, little marketing push and virtually no hype. Dollars and sales mean nothing, (except to you Americans) the quality of the game is everything. Yes, I liked Geneforge2 as well, but not as much as Gothic2, Arx, or DD. If those games had been made by the big American companies, instead of small developers, you'd have seen much bigger sales, but those companies are incapable of making games like those!! It's not us who need the reality check!!
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Wed Dec 24, 2003 1:22 pm |
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goshuto
Wanderer
Joined: 29 May 2002
Posts: 1142
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quote:
Originally posted by corwin
Dollars and sales mean nothing, (except to you Americans)
Don't you think that's a little harsh?
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Wed Dec 24, 2003 1:45 pm |
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piln
High Emperor
Joined: 22 May 2003
Posts: 906
Location: Leeds, UK |
Whoa, deep breaths everyone...
quote:
Originally posted by Val
...believe it or not, dollars speak louder than whining.
It's almost unvbelievably fitting that you used those words... that statement is absolutely true, but talking loud and talking sense rarely go hand-in-hand. Like it or not, game content in America is now dictated largely by publishers and their marketing departments, much like the way Hollywood makes movies. They see content as a bullet-point list of things that sell and things that don't, rather than elements of an art/entertainment medium that only work with the proper context and execution (the results show that this approach doesn't actually work very well for the games industry, leading to the repeated depressions we keep seeing every 4 years or so, but it's the way they know and they seem to be sticking to it). American publishers routinely demand changes to games in development (titles, lead characters, stories, anything that doesn't match that list of "things that sell") with absolutley no regard to the impact these changes will have on the integrity of the work, and few developers are in a position to argue these days. That's why we keep seeing more and more of these so-called "cookie cutter" games.
This is a generalisation, and of course there are exceptions - like Morrowind - but it's true in the vast majority of cases (and true of most of Europe's big publishers too). And this leads us to another problem - American publishers just don't spend a lot of cash on marketing foreign games properly. It's highly subjective which game is better, and not worth arguing over, but we know that Morrowind received a lot of hype which undoubtedly helped sales; it is an indisputable fact that Gothic and Arx did not get the marketing (and therefore sales) they deserved outside of their home territories. This alone tells us that sales figures do not accurately represent what gamers like and want.
Of course, the Japanese industry doesn't exactly welcome foreign games with open arms either, and they have a lot of long-running franchises and derivative titles... but they realised a long time ago that a purely marketing-driven approach doesn't work in the long run, and that they need to maintain an input of unproven, original ideas alongside the proven, marketable stuff to keep audiences interested, and keep turnover consistently high. Japan's games industry can ignore foreign markets and still profit; America's cannot, because it still doesn't really understand its own customers.
I'm not having a dig at Americans. I'm not an idiot, I'm not a xenophobe or racist, and I'm certainly not stupid enough to attack Val  . One thing I am is a movie lover, and I have long hated Hollywood's dominance of all western film industries with its garbage blockbusters - it is driven entirely by greed. I'm also a passionate gamer, and I'm growing to hate the Hollywood that the western games industry is turning into. Artistic quality, originality, intelligence etc mean nothing to publishers; their sole purpose is to make money, and if they can do so from inferior product, they will (and do, all the time). The Matrix franchise is the perfect example of the waking nightmare the game & movie worlds can descend into...
quote:
Simply because you put them on a pedestal and worship them does not mean that everyone else does.
That's the truth. But I don't think anyone's really trying to use their personal opinions to argue a case here. I think everyone's been objective so far, on the whole (except me when I mentioned Hollywood & the Matrix, but that's OK cos I'm right  )
quote:
Originally posted by Corwin
Dollars and sales mean nothing, ... the quality of the game is everything.
That's the truth too, IMO. Pure and simple. But I didn't quote the bit in the middle, I think the big C might have been getting a bit hot under the collar, no?  |
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Wed Dec 24, 2003 4:27 pm |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
@corwin: Do yourself a favor and close your mouth before you shove your foot any farther down your throat. You sound like a ranting fanboy and it isn't flattering.
You aren't even paying attention to my argument. My argument is simple. Good games are produced everywhere, America, Japan, Canada, Europe, etc. The good ones don't all come from one place and saying so means your view of the universe has just shrunk.
DS is a lite RPG, despite what you may wish. It does contain RPG elements and it sold well.
MW is boring in your opinion. There are probably a lot of MW fans who would disagree with you. Arguing the quality of which games you consider superior is a pointless exercise in redundancy.
European games have distributing problems? Boohoo. So what? Developers who experiment have to prove that they can sell a game by word of mouth alone. Especially if it's a niche genre or it isn't a sure thing that they will make money and keep their jobs. Not everyone is motivated by greed. Some people would just like to keep their jobs and they can't do that if they are not making enough money to cover their costs.
quote:
Originally posted by corwin
Dollars and sales mean nothing, (except to you Americans) the quality of the game is everything.
That is an insult. On behalf of all Americans, I demand an apology.
And how do you know if Geneforge would have been made any different? Have you invented a machine that allows you peek in on alternate realities?
I think the fanboys are the ones who need a reality check. I'm the one being objective here.
@piln: Whose idea was it to change a certain game's name to Divine Divinity? A name which probably hurt sales. It was not the developer. American publishers aren't the only ones who demand changes. Every developer has to jump through hoops until they prove that they can produce a game and make it sell just because their name is in the credits. Blizzard is a perfect example of that. Prove that you can walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
I disagree that everyone here is being objective.
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Freeeeeeedom! Thank heavens it's summer!
What do I have to show for my hard work? A piece of paper! Wee!
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Wed Dec 24, 2003 5:15 pm |
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TheMadGamer
High Emperor
Joined: 03 May 2002
Posts: 487
Location: Southern California |
Recent CRPGs coming out of Europe for the last few years have really hit the spot with me. Games like Divine Divinity, Arx Fatalis, and the Gothic games all emphasize aspects of CRPGing that American CRPGs tend to emphasize less, since the days of Ultima VII.
For example, the aforementioned above emphasize, to a much greater degree, world and object manipulation.
CRPG coming out of the states for the last few years emphasize character development much more so than world/object manipulation.
I loved Morrowind. I loved Gothic 2. But games like Gothic 2 and Arx Fatalis are a little more interesting and enjoyable to me because of certain things they emphasize.
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The Poster Previously Known As NeptiOfPovar |
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Wed Dec 24, 2003 7:03 pm |
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Korplem
Swashbuckler
Joined: 23 Dec 2002
Posts: 853
Location: Pearl Harbor, HI |
 God blesses everyone...
_________________
If soot stains your tunic, dye it black. This is vengeance.
-The Prince of Nothing |
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Wed Dec 24, 2003 7:14 pm |
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piln
High Emperor
Joined: 22 May 2003
Posts: 906
Location: Leeds, UK |
quote:
Originally posted by Val
@piln: Whose idea was it to change a certain game's name to Divine Divinity?
Sorry, I've not played DD, and I really don't know anything about it, so it wouldn't be wise (or useful) of me to comment.
quote:
American publishers aren't the only ones who demand changes.
Yeah, you're right. I do think that the big British/European publishers are guilty of the same flaws as the big US ones (there just aren't as many of them!) and I admit I could have made that more clear. I don't believe the same can be said of the Japanese scene, on the whole... publishers there seem to be more willing to trust the judgement of developers and do things that western companies would see as risk-taking. I think that by comparing our (western) industry with Japan's we can see many ways to improve on both sides of the world, but I'm sad to say I don't think that's going to happen.
quote:
Every developer has to jump through hoops until they prove that they can produce a game and make it sell just because their name is in the credits.
Yes... and it's right that a devco should prove itself if it's to acheive that kind of status. But presently they are "proving themselves" according to publishers' criteria, which I believe is hugely counter-productive. It's incredibly difficult for a developer to be able to match a publisher's expectations for fast sales and easy marketability and create games of genuine quality that will please gamers, but that's what must be done to survive in the current environment.
That's why developers of truly excellent games are dropping like flies, and those that play the company tune are unlikely to inspire fans, so they too are disappearing (just slower). Hell, even brilliant and successful developers like Black Isle are going under! We see a recognisable name in the games industry obituaries every couple of weeks here - now I don't want to sound like a broken record, but that just isn't happening in Japan.
If they shared our publishers' attitudes, brilliant developers like UGA wouldn't even last beyond their first pitch, and a masterpiece like Ico may never have been made (let alone comissioned and developed in-house by the biggest publisher in the territory). When was the last time you thought of an EA in-house production as not just a great game, but a work of art, a thing of beauty?
Western motivations are too short-term: if a publisher can't see a way to market a new & original idea, then it simply won't, even if the concept has the potential for brilliance; a long-established developer can be snuffed out if a single game sells less than expected, regardless of talent or previous performance. Pretty stupid in the long run, but money now is what western publishers want.
quote:
Prove that you can walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
When i first read that, I thought you were saying that to me, but it's about developers proving themselves, right? Right?? If not, I'm a little scared... 
quote:
Originally posted by Neptiofpovar
For example, the aforementioned above emphasize, to a much greater degree, world and object manipulation.
CRPG coming out of the states for the last few years emphasize character development much more so than world/object manipulation.
Good point... things that can be expressed statistically are easy to turn into selling points: "24 exciting weapons!!! Over 150 spells and skills to learn!!! 2.5 billion square kilometres of maps!!!"
...while world detail which can improve that feeling of "being there," and all the nice little touches that classics like U7 and UW had, make less convincing box-blurb: "immersive, realistic world" - well, even the FPSs say that... "you can bake bread" - no marketing man would touch that with a barge-pole. We as experienced RPGers know that these things really do add to a game, but they're difficult to pitch to the mass-market. There's no room for experimentation in the current western model - that means those little touches don't get allocated time or budget, so (unless team members work like dogs to implement them in addition to contract obligations) they don't get made. |
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Wed Dec 24, 2003 7:56 pm |
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