I'm incredibly excited about Divinity Original Sin (DOS) and the other RPGs I've helped fund on Kickstarter. I've played computer RPGs for decades and am thrilled with the quality of the games coming via Kickstarter. I greatly enjoyed Divinity II and am really looking forward to the improvements you're planning for DOS. The opportunity to make suggestions during development is one of the best aspects of Kickstarter, and it seems everyone agrees this will substantially improve the games. I'll be making similar posts on the other games I've helped fund.
Like most gamers, I have unique preferences and dislikes. I finish about half of the games I start; I quit midway through the others when they become boring. I prefer swords and sorcery style RPGs and hate horror or postapocalyptic games like Fallout: too dark. RTS games are too fussy, though I enjoyed the single-player versions of Warcraft. I'm a "completionist" and insist on a detailed walkthrough, ideally a Prima-like guide or gamebanshee.com. I use only a Mac, PC, or iPad. I love the complexity of lots of options and hate arcade sequences that require quick reflexes. I'm only interested in single-player games.
Part of the fun of a computer RPG is you always know what to expect. What makes them so annoying is they're all the same. Same winding cave passages and ruins containing impeccable stonework. Same old monsters: giant rats and spiders, bandits, undead, trolls, and demons. Monsters never have any connection with the plot. They're just threre, scattered around like sprinkles on a cupcake. Monsters and NPCs stand forever in one place, simply waiting for the player to show up, never doing anything else. Even the most powerful NPCs who say they're "too busy" to help just stand there, their dialog trees exhausted once they've interacted with you. To avoid unbalancing the game, the super weapon that's supposed to kill everything only gives 5% better performance, so it's almost a waste of time. (Make it something really special, and then if needed use automatic leveling for new areas to compensate.)
The plot is always the same: save the world and kill the Foozle, who is much more powerful when it taunts you in the middle of the game than when you finally kill it at the end. Half the time, the "friend" who's been guiding you in defeating the Foozle turns out to be the REALLY bad guy, who tricked you. BO-RING.
Why is Dragon Age: Origins my favorite RPG? I love the soaring music and stunning graphics, but what made it so compelling was the plot and the characters. The plot started off with a bang. Everything in the Origins world has a reason to be there. Monsters belong. The bad guys are truly evil but have a persuasive origin. The companion NPCs are the best of any game, and many of the secondary characters are equally captivating. Politics and treachery abound. How delicious! Of course, I also loved Witcher and Planescape Torment. Gameplay won the day in the Gothic series; I loved the steampunk gameworld in Arcanum; and the humor in Fable III and Bard's Tale was terrific. By contrast, Dragon Age II failed because of the inane plot and repetitive game locations.
Despite its massive scope and terrific gameplay, Kingdoms of Amalur fell short because the plot took too long to show up, and I didn't care about any of the characters. The Summer Fey looked like clowns, not magical beings. The music and graphics were terrific, but unlike Origins, there was no rhyme or reason for any of the ruins lying around. The world tree Nyralim was the most moving character in the game and my model for the sage that every RPG should have: incredibly old, incredibly wise, but unable to do much directly because he's rooted in one spot and can't move. Amalur should have used him more.
Amalur did some things very well. Its combat system was one of the best ever and is fully explained in the beautiful 600-page hardcover guide by Future Press. Also, its automatic area leveling system worked extremely well.
We CRPG gamers love joining guilds and progressing up the Wizard, Thief, and Warrior skill trees. Yeah, whatever. A much more interesting wrinkle might be that the guilds are actually outposts of different cultures, all vying for power. The best examples of this possibility are the underdeveloped subplots in Origins involving Orlais, Antivan Crows, and the Quanari. They're not actually at war. This creates the possibility that once you complete all the guild quests and are named guild head, you can actually DO something with that (bring the guilds together for a larger purpose) rather than just accessing a room with some treasure--end of guild plot.
Why do ordinary townspeople never try to clear out the monsters in their neighborhoods? Why do monsters never invade the towns? Are dwarves REALLY immune to the incredible toxicities of molten lava? But my pet peeve is the high-end NPCs who just stand around like statues. It would be fun if all the guilds, nobles, and wizards are busy trying to advance the plot and ask to recruit the PC into their efforts, but (as the magical helper character tells the PC) their attempts are mostly political and will inevitably and stupidly fail.
Here are some suggestions to make CRPGs more fun and appealing:
1. Create a compelling game world that's more than just a collection of monsters, magic, kings, and mages. EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER -- every monster and NPC -- must fit into the world scheme. Make the major NPCs complex, emotionally intriguing, and exotic. There should be a strong theme of compassion for the major characters that arises naturally from their convincing presence in the story, even when these characters are flawed.
2. It must make sense that ordinary citizens are unable to overcome the monsters in their midst. Maybe they've been decimated by years of fighting. Maybe villagers have magical protection from the wilderness and can never venture out. Maybe the monsters are simply too strong, too terrifying, but the PC and his/her companions have special powers that allow them to survive.
3. There should be a reason for all the monsters. Maybe (as in Skyrim) they're natural underground denizens fiercely protective of their turf, or automatic guardians who come alive when disturbed. Maybe evildoers can access a magic spell that creates pets when a trigger is activated. (Such a spell would of course have a counterspell that worked some of the time.)
4. Rather than FedEx quests to obtain objects, send the PC out to find the people he needs and try to convince them to join him in his cause. The target NPCs would balk because of politics or intrigue, or because they are terrified, or they don't appreciate the gathering storm, or they're caught up in their usual concerns. The PC obtains any magical objects he requires from these special NPCs. (Origins did a good job with this type of plot, but during the final battle, the few assembled mages, dwarves, elves, or knights didn't really make a difference. Ideally there would be a few special needs the PC couldn't fulfill, but for any given requirement, there would be 2-3 different NPCs, each of whom could complete the task.)
5. CRPGs grossly underutilize a classic theme from the hero myth: a wise, magical helper who can guide and provide aide at critical points. This fairy godmother may not always appear when wanted but would show up when really needed. Perhaps this helper would train the PC in ancient magic that allowed him to survive where others couldn't. Different magical helpers might be available for different character types: fighter, mage, or rogue. It might be interesting to require the PC to summon the aid of a series of helpers, each more advanced than the previous one, but requiring tasks to prove the PC is worthy of this aid. This helper sequence might be an ancient path that no one has known about or utilized for centuries, and knowledge of how to access it has been lost.
I'm sure many of my fellow gamers have different preferences. Comments welcome.
