3223 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Just because you can use a sledgehammer to force a square peg through a round hole doesn't mean that the system works.

But it did work.  It was RPG mechanics with a shooter interface.  It was brilliant.

My complaints with ME start and end with the dialogue wheel and voiced protagonist.  Aside from that, it was a fine
squad-based RPG.  It was a nice update on the KotOR model.  ME was, aside from the dialogue, a really good game.

ME2 broke everything about ME that was good, and it failed to fix the first game's one major problem (in fact, it made it worse with the introduction of interrupts).

[EternalPink]

so Fallout 3 is only an RPG as long as i use the VATS system but as soon as i don't use the VATS system its no longer an RPG?

(Think it is an RPG as well but since this is the net and most typers are lazy i think we can get by if peeps choose to save a character and type a RPG)

[olymind1]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Lore consistency informs roleplaying,
because all roleplaying is is in-character desicion-making.  The
decisions your characters make are based on both the personality you've
defined for the character (I can explain at great length why the player
needs to be the author of that personality if you'd like), and one the
state of the world in which the character lives.  Remember, the
character doesn't think he's in a game.  He thinks the world in which he
lives in the real world.

But if the lore is inconsistent, then
the player can't make decisions on behalf of the character.  The
character's knowledge of the world around him is incoherent, and thus
literally anything could be possible.  If the character can't have
knowledge, or even something he perceives as knowledge, of the world in
which he lives, he can't make decisions without allowing them to be
random.

And random decisions defeats the purpose of roleplaying. 
If the personality defined by the player has no relevance to the
character's behaviour, then the player's input is entirely
meaningless.

So that would be true rpg if Shepard is a paragon person, then the game would forbid to choose from renegade options? Because from a truely paragon Shepard's view (s)he would always choose the paragon answers. Or not if (s)he is coerced or under pressure or simpy being irrational, because sometimes people can do funny things far from their personality.

Even if the last of my sentence is neglected, in ME your described system could only work, if:
The paragon and renegade bars would be linked as one, and in dialoges in later part of the game the more paragon you became (further from renegade), the harder would be able to get paragon points, and the renegade options would remove a whole more paragon points (even neutral choices), then from a lower paragon Shepard, because those options are far from the character's moral. So this way even a highly paragon character could choose renegade option, but after the dialog, (s)he wouldn't be so paragon after all...  And there would be options that only paragon/renegade people could select (of course depending on the "character-personality-meter").

Modifié par olymind1, 08 juillet 2011 - 11:18 .

[konfeta]

I do maintain that those two groups are mutually exclusive. The features that make a good "game" routinely run contrary to what makes a good RPG. And vice versa. Since you can't have both, BioWare needs to decide whether they're making RPGs or whether they're making games.

Now this, this is interesting. So, you effectively separate cRPGs into their own family of entertainment medium as direct descendants of PnP RPGs, as opposed to considering them a genre of the video game medium. Though, I am afraid Bioware doesn't need to decide. They are making games that burrow a large number of elements from what you consider RPG. The lack of the "DM" function that existed in NWN and none of their further games should have been a big tip-off for that.

Which brings me to another question - why do you think that a "game with RPG elements" is a nonsensical statement? What's wrong with a shooter that inculdes an inventory (STALKER)? What's wrong with an RTS that has leveling up and skill choice (Dawn of War 2)? Etc.

I disagree. I think ME put the two together very well. The only reason there was a problem was because shooter fans saw a shooter interface and expected shooter mechanics.

I can't blame BioWare for that. Maybe they didn't document the game well enough, but frankly anyone likely to jump to that sort of conclusion isn't likely to read the manual anyway (despite the RTFM joke right in the game). It's not BioWare's fault that the players expected the game to be something it wasn't.

See, you can take your argument and flip it. The reality is that both systems were stuffed in there - you could play the game as an RPG-by-your-definition (abuse the pause feature), you could play the game as a shooter (ignore the pause feature). You could obviously use both as well (I aimed/moved in real time, and used the pause feature because I wanted control over my squad's spells).

[Lumikki]

wrdnshprd wrote...

bottom line is this really..

you put dialogue choices and a good story on call of duty, and leave the first-person/twitch combat.. guess what.. its still a shooter and NOT an rpg.. sorry.. its not..

same thing on the rpg side

you put a first person perspective and give shooter mechanics to ANY jrpg - but keep the inventory, gear, crafting, skills, and stat customization.. guess what.. its still an rpg

I disagree.

Perspective doesn't define it or UI or features as how it's technically done.

Basic defination goes more like if player is able to define characters and play role in interactive story with choises, then it's RPG. Define character means more than pre-define character. Interactive means that player can interact with enviroment and npcs. I ques role and story choises are more clear.

Modifié par Lumikki, 08 juillet 2011 - 11:06 .

[wrdnshprd]

EternalPink wrote...

wrdnshprd wrote...

EternalPink wrote...

wrdnshprd wrote...

bottom line is this really..

you put dialogue choices and a good story on call of duty, and leave the first-person/twitch combat.. guess what.. its still a shooter and NOT an rpg.. sorry.. its not..

same thing on the rpg side

you put a first person perspective and give shooter mechanics to ANY jrpg - but keep the inventory, gear, crafting, skills, and stat customization.. guess what.. its still an rpg

So basically "the inventory, gear, crafting, skills, and stat customization" is your defination of a RPG although we can (and someone will) point out games that have that and are not considered a RPG

when it comes to the video game industry, thats pretty much exactly what im saying..

give me one example of a video game rpg that has inventory, gear, crafting, skills, and stats and is not an rpg..

and if you say diablo.. that would be a negative.. i sitll consider that game an rpg.. definately an action rpg.. but an rpg nonetheless.. its no different than playing  a table top d&d board game.. the only real difference is that your avatar is guarenteed a hit on a mob.. yes the stats are a bit different, and the skill system is different.. but neither of these systems are absent.. and in the end its talk to an npc (DM), do a dungeon run, come back.. rince/repeat. just like most of the d&d runs ive been in.

Well other than crafting, Dawn of war 2 has all of that - wouldn't call it a RPG

Ufo Aftershock/Afterlight has the full criteria, not a RPG

Dragonshard again has the full criteria, wouldn't call that a RPG myself either

your absolutely right.. these are games with rpg mechanics.. just as there are shooters with rpg mechanics..

heck COD has rpg mechanics (weapon unlocks and a progression system).. still doesnt make it an rpg though..

in fact, most shooters today have some type of rpg progression mechanic now.. its not just simply collect ammo, weapons, and medpacks..  doesnt mean these games are RPGs though..  they are still shooters.

[SpiffySquee]

wrdnshprd wrote...

SpiffySquee wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

SpiffySquee wrote...
I disagree that the simple fact they made it a better shooter makes it a worse RPG. How does them making a better shooter make it harder for you to pretend you are Shep and make decisions for him/her?

Shooter UI and RPG UI are mutually exclusive. Look at the post above this one. He actually puts it quite well.

you didn't answer the question. How does making a game a better shooter make it harder for you to "Role Play" a character? 

 RPG "Role Playing Game" has nothing to do with the UI. It has everything to do with being able to pretend you are the character and develop them the way you want i.e. there personality, choices, and reactions to others.

So, if you give a FPS a really good story where you take control of the main character and choose how he responds to events and how he acts around others. then yes, it most certainly is a Role playing game.

then by your defintition ANY game with the mechanics you describe would turn into an rpg.

also, for most rpg fans, developing the personality of the character and choosing how that character reacts is only a small part of what makes an rpg.. most, if not 90% of the fun of an rpg is customizing the stats of the character to make it more effective in combat and social situations..

Yes, any game where you assume the role character and can have some impact on that character's personality is a role playing game. (might not be a good one, but it fits the title of a role playing game)

Conversely, having an inventory does not also mean you assume the role of the main character and control his personality. When RPG first came about for Pnp games it was not named so because it used dice and stats, but because it let you pretend to be someone else and control their decisions and actions. People just got so used to having stats that they assume they are part of what makes an RPG a RPG.

Most people think a cake needs icing, but it is not the icing that makes the cake. Same principle.

[Sylvius the Mad]

olymind1 wrote...

So that would be true rpg if Shepard is a paragon person, then the game would forbid to choose from renegade options?

No, because the game can't know whether Shepard is a "paragon person", assuming that's even a meaningful descriptor.  Shepard may have chose the so-called paragon options for non-paragon reasons.

This is part of the problem with the paragon-renegade dichotomy in the game at all.  The game assumes that a renegade choice was chosen out of a renegade motive, and that's not necessarily true.

[Bnol]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

slimgrin wrote...

I just think its silly to overanalyze when gameplay changes came first and lore came afterward in ME2.

The problem is that that's the wrong way to design a game.

The lore should come first.  Everything else should be subservient to the lore.

What happens if the lore produces bad gameplay?

Then it's bad lore, but that should have been evident pretty early in the game's development.

That said, I'm not confident that "bad gameplay" is as universal as people seem to think it is.  We all like different gameplay.

So do you know whether the lore for weapons or the gameplay came first in their decision making process?  They could have had the base story about eezo and mass effect technology and how it opened up the galaxy and then they go from there, but you generally aren't going to have a backstory for every single thing upfront before you begin high-level design, which is where they probably floated the idea of ammo-less shooting.  I don't know, but I can easily see the gameplay happening first, deciding against an ammo based system, and then explaining with lore why there was no ammo, considering that ammo is a staple of almost all shooting games in existence.  The player needed lore to reconcile the no ammo part of the gameplay, because it was so prevalent in all other shooting games.  Expecting them to anticipate every potential design issue with lore before they begin designing is a ridiculous notion.

While it is certain that people like different things, you generally are aiming to make a game fun for a wider group of people.  That doesn't mean you have to make it fun for the masses, but you can't have that small of an audience and succeed, especially when making a AAA title. 

[EternalPink]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

olymind1 wrote...

So that would be true rpg if Shepard is a paragon person, then the game would forbid to choose from renegade options?

No, because the game can't know whether Shepard is a "paragon person", assuming that's even a meaningful descriptor.  Shepard may have chose the so-called paragon options for non-paragon reasons.

This is part of the problem with the paragon-renegade dichotomy in the game at all.  The game assumes that a renegade choice was chosen out of a renegade motive, and that's not necessarily true.

This seems very much a chicken and egg arguement

For the game to assume that a renegade choice has been chosen for the renegade motive we have to assume that you already know which choice is renegade and which choice is paragon which i would describe more as a flaw of having renegade choice bottom right and paragon choice top right and displaying reputation criteria choices as blue or red.

If we werent given the colour but a more fulsome description of what would happen if you pick red/blue or they occasionally reversed the choices so that paragon was bottom right and renegade was top right it would solve that (some players would probably dislike that though since they want to play a paragon/renegade character rather than play a character and have the consequences of there choices reflected)

[SpiffySquee]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

olymind1 wrote...

So that would be true rpg if Shepard is a paragon person, then the game would forbid to choose from renegade options?

No, because the game can't know whether Shepard is a "paragon person", assuming that's even a meaningful descriptor.  Shepard may have chose the so-called paragon options for non-paragon reasons.

This is part of the problem with the paragon-renegade dichotomy in the game at all.  The game assumes that a renegade choice was chosen out of a renegade motive, and that's not necessarily true.

So, out of curiosity (so I can understand your view better) If they had all the same choices but no color system to seperate them (ala witcher) you would be happier with it?
 

[Epic777]

Arguing what is an RPG pointless especially since genre lines have become blurred.

[wrdnshprd]

lastly.. so i guess games like FF1 or any FF game for that matter arent RPGs.. neither is chrono trigger, or any classic 16 or 32-bit rpg..

if you think the above statement is false (obviously it is), then how can you call COD with a choose your own adventure game mechanic an rpg? imo, you cant..

[olymind1]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

olymind1 wrote...

So that would be true rpg if Shepard is a paragon person, then the game would forbid to choose from renegade options?

No, because the game can't know whether Shepard is a "paragon person", assuming that's even a meaningful descriptor.  Shepard may have chose the so-called paragon options for non-paragon reasons.

This is part of the problem with the paragon-renegade dichotomy in the game at all.  The game assumes that a renegade choice was chosen out of a renegade motive, and that's not necessarily true.

so each or some decisions would have "..."-s at the end of the line, with an expanding paragon/renegade options added, like:

hey Legion i'd like to save your fellows, 'cause they don't deserve to die.
or
hey Legion i'd like to save your fellows, 'cause they will be good for cannon ball or to reprogram for serving humans.

[Epic777]

wrdnshprd wrote...

lastly.. so i guess games like FF1 or any FF game for that matter arent RPGs.. neither is chrono trigger, or any classic 16 or 32-bit rpg..

if you think the above statement is false (obviously it is), then how can you call COD with a choose your own adventure game mechanic an rpg? imo, you cant..

By the rigid defintions of an RPG: Planescape torment is no RPG. Either which way you play - your damned (literally). Only a few characters change weapons and armor. Its more linear than your average JRPG. The list grows. Still is one of the best experiences in gaming.

[wrdnshprd]

btw, for us rpg 'nerds', we really dont have to worry.. not if you look at the following paragraph from the link in the OP:

We had progression in Mass Effect 2 in armour and weapon choices but that activity chain was too simple. That whole activity chain I think was a button we weren't really pushing in ME2 and specifically were trying to hit for ME3.

the above statement, along with the already confirmed skill branching system will hopefully eliminate our concerns..

well just have to wait and see i guess..

[SpiffySquee]

wrdnshprd wrote...

lastly.. so i guess games like FF1 or any FF game for that matter arent RPGs.. neither is chrono trigger, or any classic 16 or 32-bit rpg..

if you think the above statement is false (obviously it is), then how can you call COD with a choose your own adventure game mechanic an rpg? imo, you cant..

Actually (and I'm about to get sniped from a window) but I think that statement is very much true. They are great games, but you have no control what so ever over character development (aside from skills in battle), or choices, or personality. They do not let you assume the role of the main character, but are simply playing an interactive movie.

You never pretend you are Chrono. You never influence his personality or reactions. These are what makes Role playing role playing.

[Lumikki]

We know that allready that ME3 will have more customation.
Some here are arguing that without stats and loot, it's not good.

While others, like me have argued, that stats aren't needed because combat is TPS (player skill based). Unless they also add some non-combat gameplay, then that would require stats. Then my other argument is that loot doesn't make Mass Effect better game, but customation does. They aren't exactly same thing.

Modifié par Lumikki, 08 juillet 2011 - 11:44 .

[wrdnshprd]

SpiffySquee wrote...

wrdnshprd wrote...

lastly.. so i guess games like FF1 or any FF game for that matter arent RPGs.. neither is chrono trigger, or any classic 16 or 32-bit rpg..

if you think the above statement is false (obviously it is), then how can you call COD with a choose your own adventure game mechanic an rpg? imo, you cant..

Actually (and I'm about to get sniped from a window) but I think that statement is very much true. They are great games, but you have no control what so ever over character development (aside from skills in battle), or choices, or personality. They do not let you assume the role of the main character, but are simply playing an interactive movie.

You never pretend you are Chrono. You never influence his personality or reactions. These are what makes Role playing role playing.

wow.. have to disagree with you completely there.. then i guess most D&D campaigns arent RPGs either.. since most of them are talk to DM.. go to dungeon.. spend 3 hours killing mobs.. then a boss.. and return back to town.. there may be some NPC interaction in between, but not much more than what is in an FF game.

[EternalPink]

SpiffySquee wrote...

wrdnshprd wrote...

lastly.. so i guess games like FF1 or any FF game for that matter arent RPGs.. neither is chrono trigger, or any classic 16 or 32-bit rpg..

if you think the above statement is false (obviously it is), then how can you call COD with a choose your own adventure game mechanic an rpg? imo, you cant..

Actually (and I'm about to get sniped from a window) but I think that statement is very much true. They are great games, but you have no control what so ever over character development (aside from skills in battle), or choices, or personality. They do not let you assume the role of the main character, but are simply playing an interactive movie.

You never pretend you are Chrono. You never influence his personality or reactions. These are what makes Role playing role playing.

by FF1 and any FF game i'm assuming you mean final fantasy although you could be talking about fallout series, I've not played chrono trigger myself though i do remember some the classic 16/32 bit RPG's if you mean ones like Zelda etc.

I think when comparing with old games we need to remain aware that a lot of choices would have been made due to system limitations, when the average PC in peoples homes (and you don't make games for only people with ultra godlike gaming machines) was not very powerful you couldn't do as much.

Planescape torment for me is a classic example of the games ambition exceeding what was possible at the time, its a brilliant story but the sheer amount of text you have to read and absorb to understand the story makes the game play very halting (from what i recall) so if they remade the game today they could use the graphic power of todays machines to show us the story rather than make us read the story.

As i recall from the time when BG1 came out there were no RPG's that used the twitch mechanic, not because the twitch mechanic is inherently unRPG but because at the time you did not have the necessary power to render the graphics and allow a player the necessary detail and control to make a twitch sword stroke, the first game i can recall playing (although there might have been others) that attempted to give twitch control on swords was Thief : The dark project and it wasn't a great success

[SpiffySquee]

wrdnshprd wrote...

SpiffySquee wrote...

wrdnshprd wrote...

lastly.. so i guess games like FF1 or any FF game for that matter arent RPGs.. neither is chrono trigger, or any classic 16 or 32-bit rpg..

if you think the above statement is false (obviously it is), then how can you call COD with a choose your own adventure game mechanic an rpg? imo, you cant..

Actually (and I'm about to get sniped from a window) but I think that statement is very much true. They are great games, but you have no control what so ever over character development (aside from skills in battle), or choices, or personality. They do not let you assume the role of the main character, but are simply playing an interactive movie.

You never pretend you are Chrono. You never influence his personality or reactions. These are what makes Role playing role playing.

wow.. have to disagree with you completely there.. then i guess most D&D campaigns arent RPGs either.. since most of them are talk to DM.. go to dungeon.. spend 3 hours killing mobs.. then a boss.. and return back to town.. there may be some NPC interaction in between, but not much more than what is in an FF game.

what DnD have you been playing? You control your character's personality, actions, reactions, alignment, fears, loves etc etc

You decide you your character loves to fight or tries to talk his way out of everything. you decide if they charge right into battle or like to set clever traps. You choose if they love to steal, or uphold the law, you choose whither they are religious or not. You create everything about that character, back story, looks, gender, race.

Name one jrpg that lets you do even a third of that.

[Sylvius the Mad]

konfeta wrote...

So, you effectively separate cRPGs into their own family of entertainment medium as direct descendants of PnP RPGs, as opposed to considering them a genre of the video game medium.

I do so explicitly, and I have for some time.

Games have winning conditions.  They have a fixed end point.

RPGs do not.  There was a "How to Play" section in the front of an early AD&D manual (I think 2nd edition, because I can't find it, and I only have 1st edition books) written in a Q&A format, and one of the questions went like this:

Q: How do I win?
A: You can't.  There is no winning or losing.  The fun is in playing the game.

In an RPG, you're not playing a game; you're playing a character.  And that's a very different animal.

Which brings me to another question - why do you think that a "game with RPG elements" is a nonsensical statement? What's wrong with a shooter that inculdes an inventory (STALKER)? What's wrong with an RTS that has leveling up and skill choice (Dawn of War 2)? Etc.

The only "RPG element" that is meaningfully "RPG" is the roleplaying.  And it precludes other gameplay objectives.

I used to play Delta Force (a shooter) in LAN tournaments.  But I played Delta Force as an RPG, so my gameplay choices were not those I thought would necessarily lead to victory.  They were the choices my character thought would lead to his survival, and that meant I would do things like abandon a good sniping position to reduce the risk of discovery, even though I was more valuable to my team if I held that position and kept sniping.

See, you can take your argument and flip it. The reality is that both systems were stuffed in there - you could play the game as an RPG-by-your-definition (abuse the pause feature), you could play the game as a shooter (ignore the pause feature).

Except you couldn't.  ME's encounters were not designed to provide good shooter gameplay, and the cone of death meant that player accuracy was significantly impeded.

You could play it as an RPG in real time, or you could play it as an RPG with frequent pausing.  Just like KotOR.  ME was not meaningfully different from KotOR in its core design (aside from the dialogue system), and KotOR is a terrific RPG.

[Sylvius the Mad]

SpiffySquee wrote...

So, out of curiosity (so I can understand your view better) If they had all the same choices but no color system to seperate them (ala witcher) you would be happier with it?

That would be better, yes.  Let us choose each option for our own reasons.

That would also then require much better written paraphrases.

[SpiffySquee]

EternalPink wrote...

SpiffySquee wrote...

wrdnshprd wrote...

lastly.. so i guess games like FF1 or any FF game for that matter arent RPGs.. neither is chrono trigger, or any classic 16 or 32-bit rpg..

if you think the above statement is false (obviously it is), then how can you call COD with a choose your own adventure game mechanic an rpg? imo, you cant..

Actually (and I'm about to get sniped from a window) but I think that statement is very much true. They are great games, but you have no control what so ever over character development (aside from skills in battle), or choices, or personality. They do not let you assume the role of the main character, but are simply playing an interactive movie.

You never pretend you are Chrono. You never influence his personality or reactions. These are what makes Role playing role playing.

by FF1 and any FF game i'm assuming you mean final fantasy although you could be talking about fallout series, I've not played chrono trigger myself though i do remember some the classic 16/32 bit RPG's if you mean ones like Zelda etc.

I think when comparing with old games we need to remain aware that a lot of choices would have been made due to system limitations, when the average PC in peoples homes (and you don't make games for only people with ultra godlike gaming machines) was not very powerful you couldn't do as much.

Planescape torment for me is a classic example of the games ambition exceeding what was possible at the time, its a brilliant story but the sheer amount of text you have to read and absorb to understand the story makes the game play very halting (from what i recall) so if they remade the game today they could use the graphic power of todays machines to show us the story rather than make us read the story.

As i recall from the time when BG1 came out there were no RPG's that used the twitch mechanic, not because the twitch mechanic is inherently unRPG but because at the time you did not have the necessary power to render the graphics and allow a player the necessary detail and control to make a twitch sword stroke, the first game i can recall playing (although there might have been others) that attempted to give twitch control on swords was Thief : The dark project and it wasn't a great success

The big difference is in final fantasy (let's say 10 for example) you follow the story of Tidus, but you don't pretend you are Tidus. You have no control over what he does in the story, or his personality. You watch him change and grow without having any influence on it what so ever. In BG you control who you are, how you view the world, who you love, how you react to thing etc this is what makes in a RPG. Both are great games, but in my opinion, only one is an RPG

[SpiffySquee]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

SpiffySquee wrote...

So, out of curiosity (so I can understand your view better) If they had all the same choices but no color system to seperate them (ala witcher) you would be happier with it?

That would be better, yes.  Let us choose each option for our own reasons.

That would also then require much better written paraphrases.

Can't argue against that. I don't mind the paragon renegade options because they don't force me to do anything, but I agree the it would be better to be ambiguous:D