TLDR (too long didn't read) version of this comment is at the bottom of the comment.tetrisblock4x1 wrote...
Basically it's like this: You start at character creation and you choose what kind of a weapon you want to kill people with. You level that weapon up with an additional ability or two among heaps of numerical upgrades that basically serve to make the game easier. And then you proceed to play a game which emphasises combat as the be all and end all solution to every problem in the game and are rewarded with darkside/light side points based on whichever dialog hyperlink you click on preceeding the combat.
That right there sounds pretty much like 'RPG to me, so what the hell are you complaining about?
tetrisblock4x1 wrote...
If you want to play a character in any Bioware game and you want the character to be good at stealth (a few seconds of cloak in the middle of a hundred unskippable firefights doesn't count), diplomacy, trading, sagotage, trapping, repairs, science, or anything that is not shooting, well, you won't find it in any of Biowares new games. "B-b-but the dialog options, but [aragon/renegade, but customization of appearance and story" but NOTHING. You play the role of a space marine, and nothing more. I can think of a number of open world games from this year which have at least some options, morality and story choice, but I don't see anyone calling Arkham City or Saints row 3 RPGs, and why would anyone call them that? Why is Biowares Mass Effect the exception?
Reference the original Fallout and fallout 2 if you can't think of any RPGs of the type I've just described.
Oh, so THAT's what you're complaining about.
Well, listen up bro. You have a very poor understanding of what RPG really means.
RPG means crawling in the role of a character and
be that character.
Mass Effect is in fact one of the only few RPG games theses days that actually lets you be a
character.
This is an example of what ISN'T a character:
The Warden in Dragon Age: Origins wasn't a character, is was an empty shell, an avatar. You didn't know anything about him/her. You don't get to know his/her background and relationships with the rest of the world. You don't get to know what kind of training he/she had and what he/she is good at. You simply build an empty shell with a class, then you start to level up the avatar and learn it new skills so you can resolve situations more easily in the way you see fit. Some may call this roleplaying, but it isn't. The game doesn't provide you any tools to roleplay a character and it doesn't give you any feedback on how you roleplay either. You can "roleplay" an evil wizard with blood magic, but no one seems to care in the world of Dragon Age.
In Skyrim, this is even worse. You don't even get to voice your own opinion in Skyrim. Sure, you have dialogue options, but they all result in the exact same conversation. In Skyrim you're even more an empty shell than in Dragon Age.
What Dragon Age and Skyrim both do, is provide the player with an
avatar. This avatar is the player's "physical" manifestation in the world of Dragon Age / Skyrim. But in the end the player is just a tourist in this world. The player looks into the world of Skyrim / Dragon Age as a tourist and this avatar that you call your "character" is simply a tool that allows you to experience the world.
This is an example of what IS a character:While Mass Effect obviously is an example of a game where you
DO play an actual
CHARACTER, I'll pick another example.
A good example of actually roleplaying an actual character, is The Witcher (2).
In The Witcher, you play Geralt, a witcher. If you've read the books, you know what a witcher is and you know who Geralt is. Geralt is a character with emotions, feelings, preferences, skills and a background story.
At the beginning of The Witcher, you're introduced to Geralt. Then you get to play him.
You become Geralt. From that moment,
you are Geralt.
It's not hard to feel like Geralt, to beome Geralt, because you know exactly who he is and it's really easy to sympathize with him.
Then, later in the game, when you finally got the hang of Geralt and his abilities, you get to make your first moral decisions as Geralt. This is where The Witcher really shines, because you actually make those moral decisions from the point of view of Geralt. You feel what Geralt feels. You know what Geralt knows. One again you realize that you
are Geralt and that
you have yo make this hard decision
as Geralt. This is a true shining example of superb roleplaying. It's a perfect example of roleplaying actual character, the perfect example of
being a CHARACTER, not an empty shell or an avatar.TLDR (too long didn't read) version: In short, roleplaying is
not creating an avatar that basically functions as an empty shell with no personality whatsoever. Roleplaying is taking over the role of a character that you can empathize with. Good roleplaying is the feeling that you become this character with actual emotions, feelings and a background.
Modifié par Luc0s, 03 décembre 2011 - 08:47 .
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