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OP
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Joined: Oct 2004
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Link: http://pc.ign.com/articles/633/633762p1.html1999 saw not one but two huge RPGs. First up was Planescape: Torment. While there was much to love about this game, one particular design element really stood out. Rather than allowing the player's arbitrary decisions determine the path of character growth, characters in Planescape developed according to how they were used. In other words, the only way to get better at something was to spend time doing it in the game. Morrowind's system was the practice makes perfect thing, not PS:T. PS:T's system was based around D&D, where your decisions in game matter more than anything on your character's alignment. Flexibility was also the guiding principle behind the development of 2003's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The new game proved that the new 3rd Edition D&D rules are flexible enough to be adapted to new settings. (To be fair, just substituting lightsaber for sword and Force for magic doesn't seem to stretch it too far.) More significantly, Knights of the Old Republic offered a level of moral flexibility never before seen in any game. Nearly every decision players made had the potential to lead their character down the path of good or the path of evil. Those changes would be reflected in the story sequences and the reactions of other characters in the game. Discovering that the game was not only aware of the choices you'd made but would judge you by them was an amazing first for gamers. Actually, there was a bunch of D&D games that did this -- Baldur's Gate or PS:T, anyone? The Character Issue
The PC RPG has plenty of surprises in store. Rather than outlining all the noteworthy games of the next few years, let's focus on the few trends that we'd like to see continued and developed in the near future. For the most part these trends continue down paths already laid down out by previous games. In other cases, there are opportunities for new pioneers to tackle subjects that haven't yet been adequately dealt with. Okay. The upside of the looser system is that it saves the player the frustration of starting down a path that they'll later discover isn't terribly interesting. If you start out as a fighter in a traditional RPG and then find out ten levels later that your special abilities either aren't interesting or aren't effective, you've wasted a lot of time. Another bonus is that it makes the whole concept of character advancement seem a lot less arbitrary than it normally does. Suddenly discovering that after you've slain eighty-nine orcs that you can instantly either learn how to use a shield or ride a horse strikes some roleplayers as ridiculous. Knowing that you're gradually getting better at using a sword each time you swing it makes much more sense, even to non-gamers.
But there is a downside to this system. For one thing, characters who are too generic aren't very compelling. To be fair, the pig is particularly aggravating when thrust into the massively multiplayer environment. There's very little, for instance, to separate low-level characters in games like EverQuest 2. Some will argue that the early anonymity can be a compelling urge to develop more as a character but surely there's a happy middle ground between the "anything goes" approach of the open-ended system and the "you can never be anything else" system of most D&D games.
Morrowind for instance lets players create custom characters right at the start. Though there are set classes, these are really just suggested templates and you're free to pick and choose what skills and abilities make up your character. From there, however, the game assigns advancement points to you according to the way that character is played. A mage who finds himself swinging a sword or trying to pick a lock every now and then will naturally develop into a more rounded, unique individual, purely as a result of how the character is being used in the game. It still suffers from the problem of forcing players to choose an identity for their character before they know much about the game, but the fact that characters are still free to develop in other directions is a nice compromise. I've always dug Elder Scrolls' "practice makes perfect" system. The open character system's great stuff. I like how in Divine Divinity, I selected a Rogue (A Thief) -- but b/c the system's still quite open, I have picked up a few HIGH-level mage abilities, such as Healing spells along the way. Really, it's too bad that most PC RPGs pass over the potential of non-combat solutions to problems. You can most easily see this in the way traditional fantasy RPGs handle thieves. Rather than focusing on the thief's core abilities, most games simply put thieves in a combat support role. According to PC RPGs, you'd hardly think that thieves could ever be capable of much more than simply stabbing enemies in the back with poisoned blades. Building new RPGs that reward players who can spot and set traps, steal items from other characters, and use stealth as a significant component of success rather than a sideline, should be a huge priority for developers. We hope that the new physics system in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion makes at least some of these dreams a reality.
Similar cases could be made for spellcasters as characters who have the ability to alter reality in a variety of interesting ways. So far though, most if not all those abilities pertain only to combat. Finding a way to incorporate a priest's communion with their deity or an open-ended mechanic for a clairvoyance spell will greatly expand a player's sense of freedom and make these archetypes more than just the combat support specialists they currently are. Many gamers and game developers just have a harder time seeing the fun in doing something other than killing enemies. Interesting. For better or worse, the RPG genre is currently focused on the massively multiplayer format. Persistent world games make up a vast majority of the upcoming titles in the RPG category and we're seeing more and more of them taking on popular licenses to try to differentiate themselves from the crowd. We've already seen MMOs based on The Matrix, Star Wars and game properties like Warcraft and Final Fantasy. Over the next few years we can expect to see even more licensed properties with DC Comics, Conan, Star Trek, Warhammer and The Lord of the Rings all getting the MMO treatment. Okay. While it's a sound business model to pair a well known license with pay-for-play model, it means fewer options for fans of the focused story telling only available in offline, single-player RPGs. Thankfully, titles like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights 2 and Fable will ensure that the quality of the offline options remains high, even if the quantity of them remains disappointingly low. You guys forgot The Fall, which is out in Germany and coming to the USA eventually. And Gothic 3. And whatever Divinity universe game Larian is working on -- likely, Divinity 2. Developers need to reach for a more reasonable middle ground where players can join together in smaller groups but still feel like they're involved in a larger community. Again, D&D Online seems to be tackling some of these issues, not only offering a more intimate MMO setting but also streamlining many of the bumps along the road for grouped play. Eliminating the need for players to run back and forth across the world while also allowing players to share quests with each other will definitely help eliminate the downtime that discourages so many gamers from joining up with others. Really? No MMORPG's have that "fast travel system" that Arcanum had or that Oblivion will incorporate? Wow.... Fans of the action oriented approach taken by some RPGs are finding more and more that their tastes are better served on the consoles. Titles like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and X-Men Legends offer up no-nonsense action and the cooperative, social format that's sadly lacking in most PC RPGs. Speaking of all action-RPG's, what's up w/ Diablo 3?
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Mar 2003
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Thanks for putting it in here. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
Alrik
When you find a big kettle of crazy, it's best not to stir it.
--Dilbert cartoon
"Interplay.some zombiefied unlife thing going on there" - skavenhorde at RPGWatch
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jun 2003
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and thanks for the heads up <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
This is SpArTa!! oh im sorry, I must have took a wrong turn..somewhere...(runs away)
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OP
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Joined: Oct 2004
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Thanks for putting it in here. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
Alrik Articles like this do make for great discussion on the state of a gaming system or genre (and have before) -- and hopefully, all gamers will throw the kitchen sink in, on this. It was a great idea of yours for me to post this article here -- otherwise, I probably would've been lazy and not done so. So, thank you. So, yeah -- let's discuss this article and talk about the future and past of RPG's.
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OP
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Joined: Oct 2004
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The genre took a big leap forward in 1991 with the release of Ultima Underworld, the first fully 3D RPG. The new 3D world and first-person perspective made it easy to lose yourself in the massive dungeon of the game. Arx Fatalis reocgnized this well. Too bad that Arx was buggy as hell -- to the point I couldn't finish it on my old PC. It is on my new PC, so I will hopefully try and get back into it and see how it will fend on this system. Full of action, Ultima Underworld became the model for most RPGs to follow. One of the more significant followers of Ultima Underworld was 1994's Elder Scrolls: Arena and its various sequels. Where Ultima Underworld allowed players to adventure through a massive, multi-layered dungeon, Elder Scrolls games focused on a much more open world, a world filled with a larger and more detailed amount of content than any games around. Exploring the world and discovering the mysteries and stories behind the Elder Scrolls games were equally as important as the combat mechanics. Gotta' love the content-galore Elders throws at you. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> And w/ the SDK available to us, the game is STILL having loads of mods being made by users -- check RPGPlanet.com/Morrowind, and you'll see what I mean.... A different approach was taken in 1996 by Diablo. More action-heavy than most RPGs, it would set the pattern for an entirely different type of RPG experience. I think Divine Divinity took lots of elements that many games just excel at w/ one piece. Larian took from Diablo, making DD an action heavy game. And they took from BG games, where you can just wind up w/ so many skills and stats, the game will never bore you, as you're always gaining new skills, abilities, and loot. They even took BG's pause button -- the action gets so fast and furious in DD at times, that you really do need this button, even though you're controlling one warrior unlike BG. And they took obviously Morrowind, where the world is so huge and there's so many quests to do, you'll be here again for a long time. Divine does so many things right. It's obviously they have been inspired by many of the greats -- and brought their own flavor to the RPG genre. Man, I can't wait 'til DD2.
Last edited by MysterD; 17/07/05 11:14 PM.
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i recalled discussing about stuff we want in future Larian RPGs & the non-combative situations or solutions are what i have been wanting. can't really remember where i posted that idea but i know i gave some situation where u can have non-combative quests & such. anyway, this is good stuff. thanks for the link & commentaries, mysterd. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
![[Linked Image from i3.photobucket.com]](https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y72/tingtongtiaw/jang_sig.png) ......a gift from LaFille......
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1999 saw not one but two huge RPGs. First up was Planescape: Torment. While there was much to love about this game, one particular design element really stood out. Rather than allowing the player's arbitrary decisions determine the path of character growth, characters in Planescape developed according to how they were used. In other words, the only way to get better at something was to spend time doing it in the game. Morrowind's system was the practice makes perfect thing, not PS:T. PS:T's system was based around D&D, where your decisions in game matter more than anything on your character's alignment. Agree. Flexibility was also the guiding principle behind the development of 2003's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The new game proved that the new 3rd Edition D&D rules are flexible enough to be adapted to new settings. (To be fair, just substituting lightsaber for sword and Force for magic doesn't seem to stretch it too far.) More significantly, Knights of the Old Republic offered a level of moral flexibility never before seen in any game. Nearly every decision players made had the potential to lead their character down the path of good or the path of evil. Those changes would be reflected in the story sequences and the reactions of other characters in the game. Discovering that the game was not only aware of the choices you'd made but would judge you by them was an amazing first for gamers. Actually, there was a bunch of D&D games that did this -- Baldur's Gate or PS:T, anyone? Ps:T more than BG, since Ps:T's whole algimentsystem was based on this. I THINK that KotOR (and espessially KotOR2) was more extreme on the reaction-part though. The upside of the looser system is that it saves the player the frustration of starting down a path that they'll later discover isn't terribly interesting. If you start out as a fighter in a traditional RPG and then find out ten levels later that your special abilities either aren't interesting or aren't effective, you've wasted a lot of time. Another bonus is that it makes the whole concept of character advancement seem a lot less arbitrary than it normally does. Suddenly discovering that after you've slain eighty-nine orcs that you can instantly either learn how to use a shield or ride a horse strikes some roleplayers as ridiculous. Knowing that you're gradually getting better at using a sword each time you swing it makes much more sense, even to non-gamers.
But there is a downside to this system. For one thing, characters who are too generic aren't very compelling. To be fair, the pig is particularly aggravating when thrust into the massively multiplayer environment. There's very little, for instance, to separate low-level characters in games like EverQuest 2. Some will argue that the early anonymity can be a compelling urge to develop more as a character but surely there's a happy middle ground between the "anything goes" approach of the open-ended system and the "you can never be anything else" system of most D&D games.
Morrowind for instance lets players create custom characters right at the start. Though there are set classes, these are really just suggested templates and you're free to pick and choose what skills and abilities make up your character. From there, however, the game assigns advancement points to you according to the way that character is played. A mage who finds himself swinging a sword or trying to pick a lock every now and then will naturally develop into a more rounded, unique individual, purely as a result of how the character is being used in the game. It still suffers from the problem of forcing players to choose an identity for their character before they know much about the game, but the fact that characters are still free to develop in other directions is a nice compromise. I've always dug Elder Scrolls' "practice makes perfect" system. The open character system's great stuff. The problem is that you have to spend unecesary time practising instead of gameing. And that somethings are allmost impossible to train (remember haveing 20 in block, and since I never blocked, I didn't improve my blockingskill). In other cases it's just a plane waste of time that should be removed (in order to sneak good I could either move REALLY slowlly, or spend two hours at a bar standing in a corner sneaking). I know the "BING you now know how to use a shield" system isn't very realistic, but as long as the system in general is interesting and fun (and as long as I don't have to sneak in a bar for two hours to become good at sneaking), I don't really care if it's realistic or not. But if they could come up with a more realistic way of doing it (like part lvl ups, you gain many lvl ups, but they don't do that much prehaps. Allso like the Vampire:Mascerade:Bloodlines way, where you don't get lvl ups, you only get experiencepoints from doing quests, and with these experiencepoints you can upgrade your skills). I like how in Divine Divinity, I selected a Rogue (A Thief) -- but b/c the system's still quite open, I have picked up a few HIGH-level mage abilities, such as Healing spells along the way. Arcanum was generally good at this. You might not be that much of a mage if you only picked three spells, but it was stil a very open system. Really, it's too bad that most PC RPGs pass over the potential of non-combat solutions to problems. You can most easily see this in the way traditional fantasy RPGs handle thieves. Rather than focusing on the thief's core abilities, most games simply put thieves in a combat support role. According to PC RPGs, you'd hardly think that thieves could ever be capable of much more than simply stabbing enemies in the back with poisoned blades. Building new RPGs that reward players who can spot and set traps, steal items from other characters, and use stealth as a significant component of success rather than a sideline, should be a huge priority for developers. We hope that the new physics system in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion makes at least some of these dreams a reality.
Similar cases could be made for spellcasters as characters who have the ability to alter reality in a variety of interesting ways. So far though, most if not all those abilities pertain only to combat. Finding a way to incorporate a priest's communion with their deity or an open-ended mechanic for a clairvoyance spell will greatly expand a player's sense of freedom and make these archetypes more than just the combat support specialists they currently are. Many gamers and game developers just have a harder time seeing the fun in doing something other than killing enemies. Interesting. Agreed. RPG's today is WAY to focused on combat. While it's a sound business model to pair a well known license with pay-for-play model, it means fewer options for fans of the focused story telling only available in offline, single-player RPGs. Thankfully, titles like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights 2 and Fable will ensure that the quality of the offline options remains high, even if the quantity of them remains disappointingly low. You guys forgot The Fall, which is out in Germany and coming to the USA eventually. And Gothic 3. And whatever Divinity universe game Larian is working on -- likely, Divinity 2. Dragon Age will be good I've heard... Fans of the action oriented approach taken by some RPGs are finding more and more that their tastes are better served on the consoles. Titles like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and X-Men Legends offer up no-nonsense action and the cooperative, social format that's sadly lacking in most PC RPGs. Speaking of all action-RPG's, what's up w/ Diablo 3? Don't know about D3, but both Guild Wars and WoW is pretty actionbased. And there's loads of combat in most RPG's (see my thought of non-combat sollutions), so if youy want action, there's plenty. Or you can just buy a FPS <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />. Übereil
Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
Ambrose Bierce
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Joined: Mar 2003
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Agreed. RPG's today is WAY to focused on combat. That's what I always say. I fear that this is partly based on violence as being a generally accepted method of resolving problems ... at least, as it seems to me, in the USA, where most developers come from. This resulted in a strong hack & slash tendency in modern RPG games, with monsters being nothing more than cannon-fodder. I might be wrong on this, but I do ask myself where all this tendency towards combat and violence might come from ... ? *sigh* I suddenly feel the wish to register in the IGN forums, but I don't know whether it is free there ... Also, I wished I could put my voice into something where more people would listen to me <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> - and I mainly mean developers and editors. For example, we NEVER ever hear of RPG games from different countries ! (Those who aren't big in PC business ...) I'm quite sure, some people in Brasil, Italy, India and somwwhere else just develop their own RPG systems and maybe even PC games for them ... why don't we ever see them ? Are editors of magazines THAT focused ? I'm quite angry about that limited point of view. You can quote that anytime, if you want. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> Alrik
When you find a big kettle of crazy, it's best not to stir it.
--Dilbert cartoon
"Interplay.some zombiefied unlife thing going on there" - skavenhorde at RPGWatch
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