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I wouldn't say "destroy", but it changed so many things ... In my opinion not always to the better ... Did I mention the guy who ranted about Drakensang being really bad an far too easy etc. ? I assume nowadays that he played Drakensang like an Action-RPG of Blizzard' invention.

My fear is that the newer gaming generations are so much USED to this tyle of gameplay ... THat they consider "Dark Souls" as being "brutal" and "difficult". Now, in Dungeon Mster one get health points substracted for colliding with a wall ... Dark Souls imho just isn't that difficult - it is this younger generations not used to this kind of gameplay, because they are only used to fast "zerging"-like running-through game play.
Imho.



Yes, but unfortunately that was before I came to gaming.

And when I played my first games, I was unaware of the whole RPG genre.
I'm still and adventure games player at heart.

There is so much I don't know about RPGs because I'm a younger genration, too.

My writing about Blizzard was rathr directed at a newer generation of games & their players. Nowadays, everything fast and speedy seems to be king, and bloody, too. Violence [as a means to solve prolems] is glorified. There just is not a single FPS game having anything other that killing people included asmeans to solve "conflicts". Diplomacy is for wussies, to put it quite cynically.

One trend of the Games Com this year was the overall total dominance of anything militaristic, shooters, killing, an again militaristic. There weren't even that much "cute" games for consoles shown. Shooters had the biggest booths and the biggest queues. People like to play killing, obviously.

And this s my biggest gripe : The loss of anything in terms of gameplay that is not about killing others. Everything is there just to provide better killing. Better loot -> better killing, better loot -> better defense -> longer time frame of being able to kill, better loot -> better halth potions, better magic potions, better magical artifacts ... In the recent times other dialog options have been completely eradicated. And for Blizzard, other dialog options weren't worthy to implement anyway. And success gets copied ...




Cite, yes, but nothing more.

There are no more RPGs wich are like them !

PS:T : Great, but who would buy it ? Most certainly not the newer generations of players trained towards fast-paced gameplay. Dialogs are sooo00 boring !


Edit : I must admit that I've grown quite bitter over the last years. Today's gaming just isn't my" gaming anymore, thus influencing my view.

I'm of the younger generation and yet I know of Ultima and with the re-releases on GoG I'm sure RPG fanatics of this generation brought them just like I've played many games from the eighties despite not being around in that decade. I've only played Baldur's Gate recently just as I did with Divine Divinity (last year) and have only discovered the greatness of these classic RPG's.

Oh and "citing as inspiration" is kinda of saying that certain features are inspired by those games. In fact isn't the combat system in Original Sin supposed to be rather influenced by the action points system of Fallout? Meanwhile ALL Elder Scrolls games and the 2002 Arx Fatalis game (and pretty much everything else Arkane has done afterwards) have been influenced by Ultima Underworld which was one of the first First Person RPG's with non-linear exploration and gameplay.

Baldur's Gate has influenced tons of games. There was an RPG that came out earlier this year (Confrontation - developed by Cyanide) that was clearly influenced by Baldur's Gate. Most reviews even noted the similarities, however Confrontation was panned for it's terrible gameplay, camera, story and tons of bugs which wasn't surprising considering Cyanide (developers of The Game of Thrones game that released) are known for rushing games. Hell, I think they've actually released 4 RPG's this year along!!

Not just you. Ask me what RPGs I played in 2011-2012? I have no answer. Because I didn't. Honestly, I can't say I really played more than 12 games within these 2 years, eeh.

I never played Dungeon Master, so I cant say if that wall colliding was implemented good. But harder is not necessarily better. You got the good, challenging hard, but there are so many frustrating hard, because of bad game design for example.



Those are just games for the masses. Zynga games like farmville is(was) also popular, and it just involves clicking in specific intervals.
But I also find questing and diplomacy lacking in RPG's these days. Most of "RPG's" dont even have quests where you can make real choices. You just either do the quest or don't. Divinity games are still one of the best in the last years. Before that Troika games were King in it with gems like Arcanum (wow, that game is from 2001 already )

But Blizzard don't make RPG's. Diablo is an action game and WoW is a grind game.



Isnt that already the case for years, the typical shooters and sport games get majority of the attention.



Imho you cant just blame blizzard for that. Yes, they are successful, and successes get copied. But other developers can (and should) do their own thing. It's just the amount of people who jump on every gaming hype and want to make a quick buck. I mean, FIFA games sell well every year, but that doesnt mean every developer should make football games.



There still are games like that, not many, and you have to look for them in the most obscure places. And it are small developers, so they dont have the attention or money that the big ones get. But Age of Decadence is one example of that.

Blizzard and other big players are kinda like the Hollywood of gaming. If it's not your cup of tea, it looks like there are only those type of games. But then you need to search for alternative places to find what grinds your gears. I do that the last years more and more, most fun I get are out of developers with 2 people or so, and their games cost 10-15 bucks at most. And I get more fun out of them then out of the typical AAA game.



I also think you overestimate the amount of deep and slow paced games that came out in the "early years".
But then again gaming is still relative young, and is still changing a lot and it is still going to.
And nostalgia used to be better back in the days ;-)