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Post by mysterd on Nov 8, 2009 4:15:03 GMT
7 page article from 1Up.
They have a roundtable discussion about the future of the Single Player RPG.The who's who in this roundtable are: --Bill Roper, currently of Cryptic Studios --Marcin Iwinski, currently of CD Projekt --Alan Miranda, currently of Ossian Studios --Feargus Urquhart, currently of Obsidian Entertainment SP RPG's vs. MMO'sThis is where I think Bioware's upcoming SWTOR MMO is going to be VERY interesting - b/c it's going to try and marry the MMO experience (social w/ other players) and SP experience (strong story, choices for quests, etc) into one. This game is going to be a MMO, very story-driven, fully voice-acted, and often offer a lot of choices w/ different end results to the player - which is something you'd see more likely utilized in the Single Player RPG. Indie RPG'sARPG Games like say Mount & Blade have shown that by giving the player an endless sandbox (like Sid Meier's Pirates!) w/ very little voice-acting and the best combat ever done for horseback, gamers will flock to it - even if the graphics are heavily dated. It's bringing to the table something a lot of other RPG's just ain't bringing to the table. Torchlight is proving that also you don't need full-fledged VO work to succeed - especially if you're an Indie developer. Torchlight proves the classic Diablo mechanic w/ modern graphics is still as addictive as it was when Diablo first came out - Torchlight has the steampunk setting going on, while Diablo had dark-gothic fantasy.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Nov 8, 2009 13:04:50 GMT
Fascinating stuff, in both a good and a bad way. The sheer ignorance of RPGs shown by some of these developers is frightening: "the roots of RPG are fantasy and sci-fi" - rubbish. "RPGs usually rely on "magic," whether that's unexplained, sparkly magic from a fantasy wizard, or the hypothetical variety of futuristic extreme-science magic in sci-fi" - more rubbish. And as for the guy who doesn't think that post-apocalyptic games are SF, well, nuff said... I think they all need to look at tabletop RPGs a LOT more than they obviously have in order to see exactly what is possible. They are espionage RPGs, horror - and even the WW2 games that one thinks to be so impossible. That's without the alt history, Western, pirate and who knows what else stuff. And comedy, which is usually completely ignored by cRPGs. Except for that section, though, it's a very good and well thought out round table with a lot of people who obviously know their stuff (As regards cRPGs at least!). I was quite surprised to read that the differences between the European and US markets were quite so extreme (Though I am not sure 'Europe' is really one market, except for the sake of convenience...). A good read, though. And most encouragingly - they all seem inclined to make more RPGs in the future!  |
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Post by Elliot Kane on Nov 8, 2009 13:10:41 GMT
As an interesting side note, cRPGs are not the only area where there is a vast gulf between the tabletop and computer equivalents.
The vast majority of tabletop war gamers play fantasy games, such as Warhammer or SF games (40K being the main one, as Terror will doubtless attest! ;D).
Yet the computer equivalent - the RTS - is almost totally dominated by historical or near-historical war games. To the extent that there is not a single really good modern RTS that deals with fantasy at all, and only the 40K franchise really dealing with SF.
Granted, SF is far harder than pre-flight historical wargaming, but why no really serious efforts to create a Fantasy version of Total War? I am mystified...
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Post by mysterd on Nov 8, 2009 14:30:05 GMT
Fascinating stuff, in both a good and a bad way. The sheer ignorance of RPGs shown by some of these developers is frightening: "the roots of RPG are fantasy and sci-fi" - rubbish. "RPGs usually rely on "magic," whether that's unexplained, sparkly magic from a fantasy wizard, or the hypothetical variety of futuristic extreme-science magic in sci-fi" - more rubbish. This maybe true for the CRPG, since these sub-genres of RPG are beat to death - but this ain't true for tabletop. Post-apoc is definitely a genre of RPG - as long as the RPG has those two elements I've spoke of in RPG's: 1.ability to make decisions that can change the outcome of the game in numerous ways 2.constant upgrading of your character's base stats, abilities, and loot. If you have both of those elements, you're an RPG, if you ask me - regardless of if your setting is say Western, modern, history, sci-fi, strempunk, post-apoc, etc etc. Me, I'd really like to see a Western settings in a RPG, myself. That'd be different and mad cool. Though, I'd think that'd best succeed as a Shooter/RPG - since shooting is most fun (I think) when in FPS viewpoint or TPS viewpoint. Most games considered RPG's by today's standards have #2 - especially the old school style of RPG's. That's often the "loot grind" and "Character grind" aspect. These RPG's that do #2 to death in the way extreme are often considered ARPG's (action-RPG) - i.e. Diablo series and Silverfall series. Interesting enuff, Borderlands has a fair deal of #2, even though it's first and foremost a FPS - it just does the ARPG element way more than any other FPS on the market today; and does it better than any other FPS/ARPG hybrid on the market. Yes, better than Hellgate: London - way better. What Borderlands was smart about is it feels like a FPS b/c if you hit a headshot - you're going to do tons more damage usually - unlike say Morrowind where if you shoot an arrow at someone's head with your bow and directly hit them in the head, if your character is a very low level and no matter what their level is, the dice-roll could be zero and you'll do no damage - which I think is stupid. It's aggravating for me to play a game and hit them w/ direct controls right in the head, but dice roll gives me ZERO damage. At least give me some damage for a headshot - even if it's very little damage b/c say I shot someone who's a much higher level than me. Borderlands did this very well and made sure the dice-rolls won't kill the player who is actually skilled at FPS type of games (that use direct controls w/ WSAD and mouselook to aim). You really only get slaughtered in Borderlands if you're going after an enemy who's way ABOVE your level - and the game does tell you what level you should be to take on what particular quest. But, if you want to take on a quest way outside your level, that's up to you - and you'll get more XP if you succeed. Obsidian is doing a espionage RPG - i.e. Alpha Protocol. We need more RPG's to use different settings and different kinds of character races. I agree w/ what they said about the Euro and USA market. I do think that Euro and USA markets are different enough. Let me explain. They're right - Europeans are more tolerate of steep learning curves, RPG's w/ difficulty, and lack of a decent UI than most USA gamers are. Especially true in Germany - as they've still supported their guys like Larian Studios, Piranha Bytes, Reality Pump, and Radon Labs, despite their games having some sort of issue(s) that we USA gamers often scratch our heads about. If a RPG sells well in Germany, then it likely won't need to succeed in the rest of the world - as that's basically The RPG Haven. If it's a RPG - and a decent one - it's gonna sell like hotcakes over there. A game like Drakensang: The Dark Eye would've never seen the green light here in the USA, if it didn't sell well in Germany like it did. I'm glad THQ and many digital publishers did release it here - it's a solid good old-school RPG/strategy game. We don't have enuff of these anymore - since they were beat to death on the PC in the 90's and a lot more emphasis went on the single-character type of RPG. I think that Dragon Age: Origins' current success in sales and critical acclaim might help revive this RPG sub-genre (RPG/strategy). |
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Post by Flix on Nov 8, 2009 16:25:12 GMT
Oh yeah, I read this on Gamebanshee. I really only thought the Witcher dev knew what was going on, but then he just wanted to talk about the Witcher the whole time.
One of them said, I remember, that RPG's centered in other genre's, like pirates or westerns, wouldn't do well. My thought was, has anyone even tried? That sounds like fun!
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Post by mysterd on Nov 8, 2009 16:37:04 GMT
Oh yeah, I read this on Gamebanshee. I really only thought the Witcher dev knew what was going on, but then he just wanted to talk about the Witcher the whole time. One of them said, I remember, that RPG's centered in other genre's, like pirates or westerns, wouldn't do well. My thought was, has anyone even tried? That sounds like fun! Akella has done a bunch of ARPG games around pirates - Sea Dogs and Age of Pirates series, namely. About Western-based RPG's, I'd have to think on that. If I recall, Reflexive Entertainment (they made Lionheart: LEgacy of Crusade on the PC) at one time was planning on making Western RPG based around the SPECIAL Rules (used in Fallout and Lionheart). I think it was called The Badlands - not 100% sure on it. It was going to be a Western-based RPG that also had a lot of fantasy stuff involved in it (magic, elves, etc), too. But, it wound up canceled. |
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Post by Elliot Kane on Nov 8, 2009 18:09:40 GMT
GUN is the closest thing I know of to a Western RPG. It's kinda like the Sea Dogs games - open world adventure games, but not really RPGs. GUN especially is well plotted and has a good story, but the characterisation just isn't there to make it a proper RPG. Stat improving on its own does not an RPG make - as evidenced by numerous RTS games that allow you to stat up your generals.
The commbat system is just not involved enough to make GUN or the Sea Dogs games ARPGs either, being kept very simple.
I think the thing most of those devs seem unable to realise (Which is truly bizarre!) is that 'RPG' is an approach, not a milieu.
Personally, I'd love to see proper pirate & Western RPGs - and quite a few other genres, too!
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Post by Ubereil on Nov 8, 2009 18:45:15 GMT
Deadlands is a great setting IMO. You've got the Wild West, steampunk, magic and zombies in the same setting! As with everything though the devs has to do something good with it. But that would be fun. I also wish there was more being done with World of Darkness. That's 'different' since it takes place in our world, only that there's vampires and the likes. Werewolf, Wraith and Hunter all have the potential to make fun games, I think. Especially if you get to utilize on some of the already written missions. Übereil
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Post by Flix on Nov 8, 2009 18:52:44 GMT
Personally, I'd love to see proper pirate & Western RPGs - and quite a few other genres, too! Horror, for one. I was really disappointed that the Call of Cthulhu PC game was just another first person survival horror game. |
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Post by Elliot Kane on Nov 8, 2009 19:03:19 GMT
^ Agreed. A genuine CoC cRPG would be absolutely awesome.
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Post by mysterd on Nov 8, 2009 19:33:27 GMT
Deadlands is a great setting IMO. You've got the Wild West, steampunk, magic and zombies in the same setting! As with everything though the devs has to do something good with it. But that would be fun. Not Badlands, Deadlands! That's it! Wasn't Reflexive, it was Headfirst! That's the CRPG that was being worked on that got canceled! Link of canceled Deadlands game w/ screens from GameSpy.Activision did have the CRPG rights for Vampire: The Masquerade setting (of World of Darkness) , but CCP (who worked on Eve Online) now has the rights to World of Darkness stuff - since they merged w/ White Wolf. CCP is working on World of Darkness Online (MMO). |
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Post by Ubereil on Nov 8, 2009 19:53:33 GMT
Deadlands is a great setting IMO. You've got the Wild West, steampunk, magic and zombies in the same setting! As with everything though the devs has to do something good with it. But that would be fun. Not Badlands, Deadlands! That's it! Wasn't Reflexive, it was Headfirst! That's the CRPG that was being worked on that got canceled! Canceled? Nuts...  Übereil |
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Post by mysterd on Nov 10, 2009 0:52:08 GMT
A while back it was cancelled, Ube. Ugh. It could've been cool.
We'll just have to wait until someone comes up w/ an idea for a Deadlands PC RPG game.
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Post by Alrik on Nov 19, 2009 12:25:36 GMT
What we don't have are RPGs taking place in other settings. I mean - why not Aztec - South-American and/or African settings ? No-one did this before. Instead, they just cling to the fantasy settings and nowadays to Sci-Fi ... As if the world wasn't big enough ...
I hesitate to call this "racism", but it appears to me as odd that developers don't look into other parts of this world.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Nov 19, 2009 12:46:30 GMT
It's more a narrow minded attitude than anything else, I think, Alrik. The same thing that says 'All RPGs Are SF/Fantasy' surely sees no further than the usual Western mythological roots, save for the odd nod towards the Orient.
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