4chan archive /vg/ (index)
2012-09-05 05:09 13359629 Anonymous RPG General (wizard.jpg 480x640 147kB)
Tried this yesterday, but it 404'd so I thought I'd give it one more chance. Basically, I thought we could have a thread for fans of role playing games to discuss the genre in general. Talk about your favorite franchises, what you like and dislike about certain games, what you think about the current direction of the genre and ideas you have for games. Some topics to spark discussion: 1) What are you currently playing and what do you think about it? 2) What's your favorite RPG franchise or game of all time? 3) What playstyle do you gravitate towards in fantasy games, warrior, mage or rogue? 4) Do you prefer single player RPGs or MMORPGs?

2 min later 13359717 Anonymous
Planescape:Torment is not a game.

20 min later 13360354 OP
>>13359717 Good to know.

2 hours later 13366806 Anonymous
They really need to hurry up and remake the Ultima series.

3 hours later 13368382 Anonymous
>What are you currently playing and what do you think about it? Dark Souls. It's not an RPG. >What's your favorite RPG franchise or game of all time? Icewind Dale or BG >What playstyle do you gravitate towards in fantasy games, warrior, mage or rogue? Thief. Pick pockets > Backstabbing >Do you prefer single player RPGs or MMORPGs? Single player games. I like to be a chosen hero. Or at least one of them.

3 hours later 13369450 Anonymous
>>13368382 in many mmorpgs you are the chosen hero, but they don't really explain why there are thousands of you, in TOR for example every jedi knight has his very own Emperor to kill.

4 hours later 13370268 OP
>>13368382 Yeah, I prefer single player RPGs too, not so much because I want to be 'the chosen one' but because I want my choices to matter and influence the world. It also is immersion breaking when everyone in the world seems to be doing the same thing as >>13369450 pointed out. I'm curious as to why you don't consider Dark Souls an RPG. I haven't played it yet but it's one I've been meaning to pick up. These new 4chan features are interesting.

4 hours later 13370936 Anonymous
I haven't played any RPGs lately My favorite RPG of all time has to be Secret of Mana. This game's story, world, mechanics, and music all blended together well. Probably nostalgia glasses beyond belief, but I think it is close to a perfect RPG. My favorite MMORPG of all time is Everquest. Everquest's lack of "YOU ARE THE HERO OF ALL TIMES AND YOU WILL MAKE EVERYTHING GOOD AND WELL" was a good thing. All of the factions hits that you took whenever you killed something in the world made it feel like your actions were meaningful. Kill too many guards to a city and you'll be attacked when entering it. You want to bring your reputation back up with said city? Good luck killing 8 million orcs to get their trust back. Not to mention the little things like Trolls that followed Cazic Thule were the only race/diety combo that were not Kill on Sight to the monsters inside of the Plane of Fear. Obviously, that only lasted until that troll attacked the minions of Cazic Thule inside of the plane and then they were SoL. Nowadays, making evil races be hated virtually everywhere is unheard of. For those unfamiliar with Everquest and thinking that Horde is basically the same thing as playing an Evil race, go look up how much of a pain it was to play an Ogre, Dark Elf, Troll, or Iksar in Everquest. There were less than 10 safe encampments with the majority of them being on the eastern side of the main continent. The continent with the elves/dwarves/gnomes was all completely hostile to those 4 evil races. I gravitate towards playing a warrior type class. If I play an RPG, I want it to be an MMORPG even though i haven't touched that genre in ~2 years. I like the character that I create to be able to interact with other player's characters in the world.

4 hours later 13371087 Anonymous
>>13370936 >Nowadays, making evil races be hated virtually everywhere is unheard of. For those unfamiliar with Everquest and thinking that Horde is basically the same thing as playing an Evil race, go look up how much of a pain it was to play an Ogre, Dark Elf, Troll, or Iksar in Everquest. There were less than 10 safe encampments with the majority of them being on the eastern side of the main continent. The continent with the elves/dwarves/gnomes was all completely hostile to those 4 evil races. I miss that shit. That's what you call a radically different experience, not just getting different quests as Horde or Alliance. At you could switch allegiance, though.

4 hours later 13371839 Anonymous
>>13371087 It was cool when all of the good races got the same feeling when Kunark was released. The continent was almost all wilderness with a couple of camps/towns, but all of them with the exception of Firiona Vie were evil aligned. Firiona Vie was right on the coast, so if you wanted to go deeper in to the higher level zones, there was no safe haven for the good races. Even the evil races weren't really accepted into the Iksar town of Cabilis. They still had to jump through hoops to get the Iksar to like them. The exception though was the outpost in the zone, The Overthere. The walled port town there was just above kill on sight to anyone that worshiped an evil deity. I remember on my first character, a Human Warrior that followed Rallos Zek, I would avoid that place because the continent was, for the most part, all evil. I finally checked it out and found out that I was just above the Kill on Sight mark, and it was because I worshiped Rallos Zek, an evil deity, that I was accepted there. I still couldn't use the merchants, but at least I had a safe place to rest/camp. If that port town in The Overthere has a name, I still don't know what it is.

4 hours later 13372267 Anonymous
>>13371839 you could say the "problem" these days is that games are built so everyone can interact with everyone else in some fashion, usually with just 2 major divisions, instead of separating the players into a ton of small cliques depending on their character choices that would make them bond more easily. but then again, the MMO scene has changed drastically since the days of EQ1.

4 hours later 13372287 Anonymous
"RPG" as it's currently understood in video-game design typically amounts to the most superficial elements of pen and paper role-playing i.e. the dungeon crawling and the stats, (which are the exact features that JRPG developers exemplified). People need to move away from the idea that stats has anything to do with roleplaying. http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_role-playing_games/ http://insomnia.ac/commentary/the_rpg_conundrum/

4 hours later 13372491 Anonymous (conanwhatisbestinlife.jpg 530x340 19kB)
>>13372287 >"RPG" as it's currently understood in video-game design typically amounts to the most superficial elements of pen and paper role-playing i.e. the dungeon crawling and the stats, (which are the exact features that JRPG developers exemplified). Actually no, it's pretty much the opposite. RPG elements like stats have spread to other genres, but there was never a point in time when RPGs were more focused on story than they are right now. In fact, that's a cause of many lamentations for old-school RPG fans who LIKE dungeon crawling, min-maxing and who couldn't give a damn about story beyond some setting information.

5 hours later 13372934 Anonymous
>>13372491 >RPG elements like stats An RPG element has nothing to do with "stats". Every video-game has "stats". >there was never a point in time when RPGs were more focused on story than they are right now This is a good thing. > that's a cause of many lamentations for old-school RPG fans who LIKE dungeon crawling, min-maxing and who couldn't give a damn about story beyond some setting information. These are people who don't understand what it means to be engaged in a roleplaying game or are typically the worst players in an rpg session, along with types like rules lawyers. Min-maxing is an autism-specific behaviour (I kid, it's a loser-specific behaviour) for people who like to see numbers increase on a statistics sheet, dungeon crawling in virtually all serious roleplaying games and sessions is essentially only a stand-in or lead-up to actual, immersive story progression. I understand that some people like tactical strategy games, and there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not roleplaying.

5 hours later 13373246 Anonymous
well this suddenly turned philosophical

5 hours later 13373461 Anonymous
>>13373246 Because many people have the misconception that a role-play game is all about stats, inventory management and going cave-hunting and no actual role-play.

5 hours later 13373746 Anonymous
>>13373246 There isn't really anything philosophical about what's being discussed. It's a simple matter of experience and perspective. My guess is that most of the people who focus in on things like the combat system, stats, crawling, etc in rpgs are the sort of people who are either naturally inclined towards minmaxing or munchkinning (some people like to play with rules a lot, that's fine), are strategy gamers, or grew up with CRPGS. I'm also inclined to think that the majority of people who DO have experience outside of CRPGS and prescribe to these erroneous beliefs have mostly come from relatively rule-bound games like D&D, instead of from rpgs like WoD. Look at how VTMB plays, for example. The combat sections are univocally the shittiest parts of the entire game, and that's because in most decent P&P games of VTM the notion that you would include these tedious crawls is insane.

5 hours later 13374171 OP
>>13372287 >>13372934 OP here, and I actually agree with you almost 100%. While I do think stats are important in RPGs and shouldn't be minimalized, I've never really understood this philosophy that's been created by self-described 'hardcore' RPG players that lots of numbers are what role playing is about. For example, I've never really considered Diablo or Torchlight to be RPGs, even thought they're generally labeled as such, or as action-RPGs. I can see how people who take a traditional view that the core experience of an RPG revolves around number-crunching and constantly upgrading to the best gear and abilities would label them as such, but I don't. While I consider a variety of skills, stats and equipment options to be extremely important in an RPG I personally believe that the core of the role playing experience is, well, the role playing. That is, the ability to interact in as many ways as possible with the environment and the characters, the ability to make choices that define who you are as a character, the ability to choose your dialogue and as many options to deal with any given in-game situation as possible. That's why I consider Fallout 3 and NV to be about as close to a true role playing experience as has been created to date. Any major objective has at least several ways to progress through it: you can fight, use stealth and trickery, talk your way through it with a well-developed dialogue tree and often make use of at least one or two of your skills provided you've put enough attention into them. Diablo is a fun game, but it is not, in my humble opinion, a RPG. It's an action game/dungeon crawler with an RPG like leveling and loot system.

5 hours later 13374426 Anonymous
>>13372934 not the same guy, but stats in general, especially in RPGs, are important not because you want to see numbers get higher, but because they're an objective and transparent way to quantify thing. yes, there are tabletop RPGs without any math, where everything is kept in check by narration and roleplaying, but they're a rarity in tabletop alone, not to mention that it plainly would not work in video games because of DM's role remains absent and has to be substituted with pre-defined paths and choices.

5 hours later 13374628 Anonymous
>>13374171 >I've never really understood this philosophy that's been created by self-described 'hardcore' RPG players that lots of numbers are what role playing is about. It's because RPG is probably a genre that has gone through more iterations than any other video game genre and someone who, for example, played RPGs back in the 80's has a drastically different take on what constitutes it compared to someone who started playing RPGs a few years ago.

5 hours later 13374783 Anonymous (gpgxop39l3ux_t.jpg 344x499 52kB)
Anyone know what the verdict is with this?

6 hours later 13376110 OP
>>13374628 Understandable. Still, I think we need to acknowledge that as technology has evolved so have games and this shouldn't automatically be deemed a bad thing or 'casualization'. If people prefer the old school format then all the power too them and luckily it seems a lot of smaller and indie developers have dedicated themselves to recreating this type of experience as of late. I just don't think that type of gamestyle should be considered true role playing. >>13374426 >because they're an objective and transparent way to quantify thing Agreed, which is why I say the importance of stats shouldn't be minimalized. But they also shouldn't be the only thing that matters or even the main focus of an RPG, at least in my opinion. I think Fallout and TES have found a solid balance. Increasing stats and skills in those games - especially in TES where skills increase through use - have always felt more like a natural progression of your character's abilities and not just number crunching, or, as others have been putting it, a somewhat obsessive focus on min-maxing.

6 hours later 13376309 OP (1346335199173.jpg 640x426 59kB)
I'd also like to add that this type of thoughtful and intelligent public forum of ideas is exactly what I was hoping for when I started this thread. Carry on everyone.

6 hours later 13376782 Anonymous
>>13376110 >But they also shouldn't be the only thing that matters or even the main focus of an RPG, at least in my opinion. But they are an integral aspect of them. After all, our character is mechanically defined by his stats, they determine what he can and cannot do. Don't have any points in swimming, meaning you never learned how to swim? Well shit, that's content locked to you in a game.

6 hours later 13377043 Anonymous
>>13370936 >Not to mention the little things like Trolls that followed Cazic Thule were the only race/diety combo that were not Kill on Sight to the monsters inside of the Plane of Fear. Obviously, that only lasted until that troll attacked the minions of Cazic Thule inside of the plane and then they were SoL. always loved details like that. how you can, for example, learn orcish in everquest 2 and it doesn't do anything, but goddammit your character now knows orcish and he understands those insults that orc enemies yell at you.

7 hours later 13382531 OP
>>13376782 Oh, agreed. Like I said I think TES and Fallout have found an ideal balance (Skyrim hiccuped a bit with the removal of attributes although I still loved the game). One of the reasons I started this thread is because I'm actually working on an RPG - purely from the idea level, I know nothing about game design or programming - in my free time. Most of the stuff I've focused on so far has been the character building so I've been thinking a lot about the balance between the use of numbers and player skill and choices.

8 hours later 13384289 Anonymous (fuck you too crate.png 640x480 369kB)
Have any of you guys played Might and Magic 6? Do you know why all the crates I open are shooting spells at me?

9 hours later 13386917 Anonymous
>>13384289 pls respond why we so ded

9 hours later 13387443 Anonymous
>>13384289 >>13386917 Can't say. Maybe they're cursed or something?

11 hours later 13394815 OP (tumblr_ly72cs9gGr1qh6hqxo1_500.png 435x571 388kB)
Bump.

14 hours later 13402310 Anonymous
>>13377043 For some of the heritage quests in that game, some of them required you to learn the language of an NPC along that quest's path because that NPC doesn't know common and you need to interact with that NPC to progress through the quest. My favorite quest in Everquest 2 still has to be how you change factions from good to evil, Qeynos to Freeport. Near the end of the quest, you had to kill 500 Orcs in the Commonlands and kill 3 or 4 extremely rare orcs in the same zone. During this time, you were kicked out of Qeynos and couldn't go back into it, but you couldn't get into Freeport because you weren't accepted in to that city yet. You floated around the edges of civilization during this time where you were trying to kill these rare orcs all across the Commonlands. And now I have to pull up the music from the game and listen to it because I loved that game's music. Both EQ1 and EQ2 had great music. Also, as far as what RPGs are, if I could contribute to this discussion, I could say that playing DayZ as a character that reacts and acts differently than I would personally is me roleplaying that character. So DayZ could technically be a roleplaying game since I'm playing the character as someone that is not myself. Not sure if that's coming across as I want it to, but there it is.

16 hours later 13407258 Anonymous
>>13402310 > So DayZ could technically be a roleplaying game since I'm playing the character as someone that is not myself. that would make every game an rpg, bro

17 hours later 13410235 Anonymous
BUMPAN

26 hours later 13429257 OP
>>13407258 >that would make every game an rpg True, although at the same time I kind of see what he's getting at. There's games like Mario or CoD where technically you're taking on the role of another person but overall it's a pretty linear and straightforward experience but there are also games that allow a player significantly more choice in how to act and proceed through their various goals. I suppose DayZ could fall into that later category.

27 hours later 13433490 Anonymous
>>13429257 That's what I was getting at

32 hours later 13450845 Anonymous
>>13384289 Come on guys. I know one of you has the solution to this.

32 hours later 13451068 Anonymous
>>13429257 The way in which RPGs are categorized is contradictory to what role playing games means semantically. It's stupid as hell. If something is considered an RPG, it is likely because of the progression of stats or abilities among other things, and the progression of the player/character more than anything else. It's stupid, but that's just how it do.

36 hours later 13463507 OP (promo1.jpg 570x300 133kB)
>>13451068 But when you have a survival oriented game where you're constantly making decisions about how to interact with other players and collecting and managing limited supplies, couldn't that be considered player/character progression in its own way? It's at the very least an interesting idea to toss around. Anyways, as I said in the other, short-lived thread I'm currently playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. I initially dismissed it after playing through the demo around the release because it seemed pretty generic but the full game turned out to be a lot better. It's really just a hybrid of elements from other major RPGs but it has pretty good combat (I don't like that you can't manually unsheathe/sheath your weapon and the fact that attacking always causes you to lunge forward; plus blocking is worthless, especially compared to dodging) and A LOT of content. You can definitely see how it was originally designed alongside an MMO, especially in the questing structure, but that's not necessarily a bad thing and the questing keeps you engaged. It's got a bit of humor at points too that remind me somewhat of the Fable series. Anyways, I was wondering what others who have played it think. Personally I would have like to see how Project Copernicus turned out.

38 hours later 13472372 OP
I am kind of concerned about reaching the level cap too early though.

50 hours later 13501262 OP
Bump, going to play more KoA.

55 hours later 13514765 OP
Get ready to argue! http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/07/igns-top-100-rpgs-coming-soon

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