Xeranx wrote...
@Il Divo
How about we use the rest of this thread to nail down what an RPG is then. I got into RPGs late. It wasn't until I was in high school (freshman year I think) that a friend insisted that I play his copy of Dragon Warrior 4 on Nintendo because I was downing the RPG genre and he was head over heels in love with Final Fantasy 3 (I think).
Let's start with tabletop PnPs of which I have no experience with and extrapolate what can go into a computer game. Let's do this without taking the dice rolls for the time being and just work with everything else. For right now I believe I can safely state that an RPG needs character progression. Namely: your character. Let's go from there.
It's hard to remove RPGs from their tabletop roots. The earliest western RPG games basically tried to emulate D&D with the computer doing the dice rolls for you. To me the "purest" RPGs still hew close to that original bone. That would mean they need to include the following:
Exploration: As free as possible. The ability to choose (you'll see that word come up a lot) your path as much as is possible and not be forced into a particular order to achieve everything. This means you need an engaging, fully realized world with history and culture and people.
Customization: The reward of exploration. The ability to integrate the things you find and buy into the type of character you're trying to RP. This means there has to be an inventory system and wearable/weildable/usable items. The more varied the better and he more individual the better. Pieces or armor, for instance, are far more satisfying then whole suits. Ideally, even great items have some drawbacks. Customization also falls into abilities but that will be next.
Progression: This need not mean classes and levels but it does mean skills and abilities that you are somehow able to increase throughout the game by adventuring. These choices should be as varied as possible so you can choose the exact build you want with all the strengths and weakness that define your character.
Variety of outcomes: This means there is ideally always multiple ways to achieve a goal, whether it be through combat, talking or any number of things. If the only way to achieve anything is by the sword/gun then this limits the character builds you may be successful with. This one thing is the hardest thing for computer RPGs to accomplish. With tabletop gaming, your imagination is the limit. With games there is the restriction of simply programming endless outcomes and the expectation on the part of most players that combat resolves all anyways which is the norm in games. Ideally more variety stems from the game world itself as it keeps track of your exploits and gauges how people in the world react to you based on that.
Now, we could go into the tropes that most computer RPGs use but they came about due to limitations in computing power and now hang on due to nostalgia and lack of creativity. Of recent games, I think Bethesda's RPGs come closest to meeting the ideals I personally have for RPGs. Choice. I also love DA:O though. While it isn't nearly as open as a sandbox game, it has interesting progression, strategic and challenging combat when you turn up the difficulty, and a brilliant conversation mechanics that both make the characters shine but feed into gameplay. I just wish they never included gifts because then trying to keep your party happy would have been as challenging as other parts of the game.
Now there are things that don't make games RPGs just for having them. Being able to points into some skills or upgrading weapons does not an RPG make. In fact that would make 85% of the games made in the last decade RPGs. Simply having an inventory does not an RPG make. Again, that's pretty much most action games.
To me, ME2 isn't an RPG. It's a great game and I enjoy the hell out of it but it's closer to a "make your own adventure" type game. There are some divergent paths but there within strict limits. Every mission is a shooting gallery. The only thing you customize is your N7 armor and the color changes have about as much effect as the different pieces do. The rest of your 'upgrades' are just that. Only upward. There is no trade off. All your stuff keeps getting better and better and there is no need to switch, at any point, from what your comfortable with. All combat is the same: strip defenses, which you can do with two powers, rinse repeat. It's also right in front of you. There's no trying to figure out why you would keep getting your ass kicked by something. The game shows you what's protecting your adversary and those things are precious few which leading to less variety. This is also a direct correlation to the lack of variety you have in skills to choose from. If you are going to have a class system then classes shouldn't share so many abilities in common. On top of that, when only a few powers are actually viable to take down opponents protections then that further limits the utility of other powers and how creative you can be when dealing with combat.
I, personally, think it's a big mistake to have so many powers that only effect unprotected enemies. At higher difficulties it becomes dumb because your heavy warp or heavy overload kills everything anyway. Just in the act of stripping protections you cut into their health. If you try to throw a pull field in there or a singularity to be creative that sucks out the last sliver of life they had in them anyway. It would have been smarter if some powers didn't work against some defenses. Variety! That what it needs. Then your whole repetoire of powers would be needed and put to good use. Oh, and on the TPS as opposed to RPG shooter front? Bioware needs to accept that ME is a cover based TPS and truly invest in making the cover and shooting mechanics better. It needs to offer what every good modern TPS (Gears and Uncharted) does. Things like being able to switch cover more easily, switch the shoulder you're shooting over and PLEASE give me a slider for the gun sensitivity rather than 3 settings.
Anyway, my two cents.
Retour en haut
or nah... i'm fine either way..
