[wordswords]

WolfCoder, on 12 April 2012 - 12:36 PM, said:

wordswords, on 12 April 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

..It is difficult not to make a great game when you have decades worth of writing to draw upon..

This is far from true and is actually a rare occurrence for them to not screw up a game set on a long established world.

wordswords, on 12 April 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

...
I am mostly disappointed with the current trend of action RPGs and shallow plotline games that are developed by large software houses nowadays. You just have to look at the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series development to show the way things are going - they have been steadily dumbed down to try to appeal to a larger audience.
...

I've always loathed the "what the fuck do I do where am I where do I go?" of the classic PC RPGs, so I love modern PC RPGs like Skyrim. They ditched the needlessly complicated RPG systems, awful controls, and endless wandering (ex: Morrowind), so now I actually notice when the story is kind of lacking.

A good JRPG doesn't need a good story since the gameplay elements are agnostic to the story (Grandia III is a good example, shit story but awesome battle system), but these modern PC games could use a much deeper story since taking control of the story and completing quests in your own ways is part of the gameplay. Skyrim is fun, but often I feel like things I do have little weight on the game world.

Even a bad JRPG story is better than a bland, boring one. FF13 is a good example of being really boring and having an equally un-involving, boring battle system to go with it.

Hm. To me, Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim are essentially a progression of the same game - non-linear sandbox first person RPG. I am wandering about in Morrowind, I am wandering about in Skyrim. The only difference is that Skyrim is much more polished and looks better.

The definition of 'role-playing', to me, is when you play a role - a character - in a story. Your decisions impact on the progression of that story. So, a good story and plot is essential to the game.

[WolfCoder]

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The only difference is that Skyrim is much more polished and looks better.

..And the controls don't suck. And the combat doesn't suck. And I know where the hell to go. And you can fast travel, saving endless walking everywhere. And so on and so forth.

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The definition of 'role-playing', to me, is when you play a role - a character - in a story.

No, you play a role in solving problems- usually a particular role in combat for these kinds of games. A story just motivates the problem (you know, a scenario). Again, if the game elements are agnostic to the story (like many JRPGs), the game can still be really fun if the story is bad.

When I mentioned where the story is part of the gameplay, that's for the WRPG style games where you're supposed to be "writing" the story as it goes. Even then, I still think Skyrim is a fun game even though the story isn't really that deep.

You can decide whether or not the story is part of the gameplay when making an RPG. -And if you do, you should realize it is nothing like writing a book or movie, you have to write the story to fit the game. This is a very common problem I see these days where they write the game like its a movie or book.

This post has been edited by WolfCoder: 12 April 2012 - 04:58 PM

[Blackball]

I think both aspects are really important, am rpg that doesnt have a good story wont hold my attention for long, and if the gameplay just sucks then i wont want to play it anyway regardless of the story. my favorite rpg happens to be the one that brought me into the genre in the first place Final Fantasy IX , yeah its cartoony and a bit silly at times, but there will alway be a special place in my heart for this title

[WolfCoder]

I'm trying to think of RPG games that had really good stories, but the game itself sucked. Of course, this could be because I quit any potential game before I could get through the story (because the game itself sucked).

[wordswords]

WolfCoder, on 12 April 2012 - 04:52 PM, said:

Quote

The only difference is that Skyrim is much more polished and looks better.

..And the controls don't suck. And the combat doesn't suck. And I know where the hell to go. And you can fast travel, saving endless walking everywhere. And so on and so forth.

Quote

The definition of 'role-playing', to me, is when you play a role - a character - in a story.

No, you play a role in solving problems- usually a particular role in combat for these kinds of games. A story just motivates the problem (you know, a scenario). Again, if the game elements are agnostic to the story (like many JRPGs), the game can still be really fun if the story is bad.

When I mentioned where the story is part of the gameplay, that's for the WRPG style games where you're supposed to be "writing" the story as it goes. Even then, I still think Skyrim is a fun game even though the story isn't really that deep.

You can decide whether or not the story is part of the gameplay when making an RPG. -And if you do, you should realize it is nothing like writing a book or movie, you have to write the story to fit the game. This is a very common problem I see these days where they write the game like its a movie or book.

For the RPGs I like playing, story is the most essential element of the game. From the definition of RPGs at - http://en.wikipedia....ying_video_game - you can see that they originate from pen & paper games such as D&D, which is essentially a storytelling game, or has been the way I play it.

The game mechanics have always been secondary to this story-telling, for me. You can see from this search - http://www.google.co...vs+roll+playing that this is a hotly contested topic though. It's an argument I've heard before in many forms, over the years.

If I want a stats or combat mechanics game, then that is more of a simulation for me, as opposed to a RPG.

[Choscura]

The environment is the most important part in a pen and paper game (fuck you, I'm including them, because otherwise this whole topic will be about nothing but graphics technology). In a computer RPG, the most important part is removing the player's need to deal with the rules; and the second most important part is the environment. All stories are set in the environment of the game, and it's the critical detail that has to be overlooked so that you can see what you want to do. If you do it right, you end up with something like Shadowrun (pen and paper version), where basically you can do whatever the fuck you want. If you had a lazy GM, he could literally just use the PHP generated dungeon maps from rpgnet.com and throw goblins and kobolds at you for an entire adventure; the fact that you might all be ninja elves with machineguns and bionic vision simply didn't matter, because the environment literally let you do anything- tech, magic, ghost worlds, interwebz, anything.

The only way to improve on this kind of environment- an environment where everything is permitted- is to have one where nothing is permitted, and this is exactly what Paranoia did, which is why (for those who have played it) nothing can possibly hold a candle to it. Paranoia literally starts each of the characters in the game with 6 'clones' that take the place of that character when (not if) he or she dies, because the environment is so deliberately hazardous, in every sense of that word. That was the fun of it; betraying your fellow player-characters for minor infractions and pitiful rewards (or to offset grievous deaths at the hands of others). I played in games where every character infected every other character's PDA/phone with spyware to either track movements, display (censored) content, or to beep loudly when danger was nearby, etc. I ran a game where the PC's were literaly given an ancient birthday cake and told it was a weapon- before being given orders to test it on the first communist they found. They tried wearing it, they tried throwing it, they beat people up with it, one of them fucked it, and I think they presented it as the mortal remains of a communist to their commanding officer at the end of the adventure, who subsequently had them executed- twice- for executing another citizen of Alpha Complex without filling out the proper form, and second, for not returning an experimental prototype weapon of technological and cultural value to all of humanity.

TL;DR- when are they going to make a Paranoia MMORPG?

[modi123_1]

I can't see Paranoia being an MMORPG... with out having people across a table with you it would lose something... a tangy je ne sais quoi.

Though you could play:
http://www.paranoia-live.net/news.php

[Choscura]

I dunno, I think Paranoia as an MMO would have some goofy potential, especially if you could do the AI right- give it some natural language processing, maybe, or give the players a way of communicating to the AI - in a meaningful way - about other players or objects, eg "that guy is breaking the law!" or "bad shit is about to happen here!". If you did that, you'd end up with a sandbox where everybody could report everybody, where high-level players, items, and locations are color coded according to security clearance, and where the potential for mischief is astronomical. Just imagine what a couple of noobs could do running around with a few cans of blue paint and an angry green chasing them, especially if they could report that green to friend computer for crossing a blue line.

[Blackball]

I am not developing an MMORPG, or a P'n'P style rpg. The reason I choose not to include them in the question was not because I dislike them ( in fact i love P'n'P style rpgs, cant stand MMOs though) its just the the interactivity and the core mechanics differ so greatly that they have no correlation to regular jrps or wrpgs, aside from the rules behind the scenes. The reason for my posting this was to find out what variables in the different games made them fun or made them suck. MMORPGs imo are so monotonous to such a degree that they become pointless piles of ( Kill 10 of these, Bring me 7 of these, take this to so and so quest that are imo boring )Dont get me wrong though, an online RPG could be a wonderful thing if it does away with the pointless hack n slash questing, incorporated actual problem solving, and had a story that was more than an opening cinematic.

I am however, creating a innovative, multiplayer rpg, with some basis on older editions of DnD, and am merely attempting to get peoples opinions on what gameplay features made for fun or sucky games in the past and present rpgs.

Anyways, thank you all for your responses, it is appreciated