83 réponses à ce sujet

[Remmirath]

Inquisition is a roleplaying game. You are creating and roleplaying your character. There are many opportunities to express your character's opinions on varying issues, and there's room for a range of quite different personalities. You're not restricted to a certain type of character, and certainly not to playing somebody else's character.

That is the difference between a true roleplaying game and a game that merely has RPG elements. Inquisition does better at this than a good many games, so I consider it a good RPG. Do I consider it mechanically solid? No. I actually rather hate the combat mechanics, and indeed many other individual gameplay elements. However, there have been multiple other RPGs with poor or very bad combat that I've liked. DA:I is hardly the first. (Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura comes to mind).

I'd prefer, greatly, if the combat were more as detailed in the beginning of this thread -- but to me, an RPG hinges on making and controlling your character, and more specifically, their personality. Combat and game mechanics can be well integrated into that, and that is assuredly preferable. It's not the case in DA:I, unfortunately, yet DA:I remains an RPG.

I guess they never made an RPG in Japan.

In my opinion, they haven't -- or more to the point, the JRPG style of game does not qualify as a true RPG to me. You are almost always handed somebody else's character to play, and not given much choice in how you play them. That is not an RPG to me. Planescape: Torment is the closest to that which I'll call a real RPG, and it's on the edge (squeaking in because you have such complete control over the character's personality), even though it is one of my favourite games.

[Feranel]

You made a big deal about stat skill checks for jump height but no stat skill checks for movement speed?  In all DA and Baldur's Gate the hulking warrior in armor moved just as fast as the lithe rogue in light armor. No skill checks for language to see if you completely fucked up translation, or even speaking?  

 

Just because stat allocation and skill choices aren't necessarily as granular as what you can get in a table top RPG doesn't mean it's not an RPG.

 

In no video game RPG (without modding) do we ever get the choice to say "**** it, I'm leaving and doing something else, or joining the enemy right off the bat."

 

Something will always have to be lost in the translation from paper to electronic. 

 

Table top RPG's are not the sole definition of RPG, and are not the "origin" of RPG, it's the definition of a Table Top RPG, which, in fact come in many varieties that are not just ultra granular skill-check dice roles, I know plenty of pen and paper RPG's that are less granular than even DA:I gets, meant for quick sitting encounters with large groups of people at parties, etc. 

 

Gary Gygax was a great man, but he didn't invent the idea nor the definition of a Role Playing Game.

[Mirth]

Yeah??  Not sure I'd go so far as to say Gygax was a 'great man'.  As you mentioned, he didn't invent Role Playing and he certainly wasn't the sole creator of D&D. 

He was a shred businessman though, but that alone doesn't make him great.

[Benman1964]

You realize that "RPG" encompasses many different sub-genre's right?  There's Action, Tactical, Tabletop, MMO, Simulation, Live Action, Adventure... I mean, RPG's are not just ONE THING.  

Yeah, GW Mordheim ....... love it.

[In Exile]

I agree that DAI is not a 'role playing' game in the tradition of Baldurs Gate. It's an action game. While some may like it, I'm glad I waited to get it on the discount sale they were running. I did not pre-order as I also feared they would repeat the disaster of DA2 - which was the first game I uninstalled from my hard drive unfinished since Daikatana.

After playing for some 20 hours I started a list of what I see are its RPG flaws.

- Can't talk to companions unless you're in your base. Not even in field camps are you allowed to say 'Hi' to any of them.
- Except for quest givers almost no NPCs can be interacted with.
- NPCs have no schedule. C'mon! Ultima VI had a system with NPC's having a daily routine 20 years ago!
- No day/night schedule. Any area you visit has day or night fixed.
- Inability to walk (on the PC) completely destroys the RPG immersion.
- On 'normal' setting, 90% of combats can be won with my mage by standing still and holding down the fire button. Serously.
- Ores and plants respawn resources in about a minute.
- Want to know if something can be touched? It's labeled 'Loot'. Everything worth money has the common label 'Loot' everywhere.
- If you use a horse, your companions vanish, and mysteriously reappear when you dismount.

I suspect nearly all of the flaws are because they wrote a game for consoles, not the PC. Very sad that Bioware had died.

You can't mention BG and then write this list without being completely hypocritical. In order:

1) You could not talk to your companions (almost) at all in BG1 and in BG2 you could not trigger conversations with them.
2) There were almost 0 interactions with non quest quest givers in BG1. BG2 was similar. DAI has far more dialogue with every NPC except the random zone ones who have as much dialogue as in BG1.
3) BG1 and BG2 had no NPC schedules.
4) DAI is about as easy as BG1 on normal. It lacks the rock paper scissors mage duels of BG2 but that's a good thing. D&D in general is about nothing more than melee auto-attack until lv. 5 or so.
5) All loot in D&D exists to be sold. Most is merchant fodder.

All these flaws existed in BG. It's fine if you don't like DAI but at least play the game you venerated.

[Chelonius]

This is 2014.  I'm running a quad-core CPU at 4.5 GHZ with 8 GB RAM.

 

BG1 was released SIXTEEN years ago.  You'd think that, maybe, possibly, they wouldn't go backwards and drop off good RPG elements in favor of making glowy effects and 'Look!  A horse in a Frostbite engine game!'.... a horse that no one uses. 

 

 

You can't mention BG and then write this list without being completely hypocritical. In order:

1) You could not talk to your companions (almost) at all in BG1 and in BG2 you could not trigger conversations with them.
2) There were almost 0 interactions with non quest quest givers in BG1. BG2 was similar. DAI has far more dialogue with every NPC except the random zone ones who have as much dialogue as in BG1.
3) BG1 and BG2 had no NPC schedules.
4) DAI is about as easy as BG1 on normal. It lacks the rock paper scissors mage duels of BG2 but that's a good thing. D&D in general is about nothing more than melee auto-attack until lv. 5 or so.
5) All loot in D&D exists to be sold. Most is merchant fodder.

All these flaws existed in BG. It's fine if you don't like DAI but at least play the game you venerated.

[DragonAddict]

Agreed, BG1 was released about 16 years ago and DAO was released about 5 years ago.........I'd expect a current RPG not to have any of the issues everyone has brought up and not just another game with better graphics, linear, hack and slash, short and bad story and more sex.

[katokires]

You made a big deal about stat skill checks for jump height but no stat skill checks for movement speed?  In all DA and Baldur's Gate the hulking warrior in armor moved just as fast as the lithe rogue in light armor. No skill checks for language to see if you completely fucked up translation, or even speaking?  

 

Just because stat allocation and skill choices aren't necessarily as granular as what you can get in a table top RPG doesn't mean it's not an RPG.

 

In no video game RPG (without modding) do we ever get the choice to say "**** it, I'm leaving and doing something else, or joining the enemy right off the bat."

 

Something will always have to be lost in the translation from paper to electronic. 

 

Table top RPG's are not the sole definition of RPG, and are not the "origin" of RPG, it's the definition of a Table Top RPG, which, in fact come in many varieties that are not just ultra granular skill-check dice roles, I know plenty of pen and paper RPG's that are less granular than even DA:I gets, meant for quick sitting encounters with large groups of people at parties, etc. 

 

Gary Gygax was a great man, but he didn't invent the idea nor the definition of a Role Playing Game.

Yeah and you ignored that I said that to be an RPG a game needs skill/stats check + randomness and SOME of what I posted. I liked your points but a game does not need it ALL. Needs some. Inquisition has NONE. If you can't tell the difference between having none, not even the core, and having some, I can't help you. In Inquisition no stat does anything besides the stated 2 battle utilities in the stat screen. Nothing else. Not even most of traditional combat uses.
Not even little things like extra conversation option like we had in Origins, not.
So again, please, ignore that is some x none and instead try to prove me wrong by going to the extreme of saying that is all x none, perhaps by fooling yourself you can fool someone else. But rest assured it is none x some, not none x all. I'm not asking all of it just some. No game have it all, not even tabletop RPGs, they in fact have ridiculous systems most of the time, but it matters not, it matter that Bioware provided that for me, now they took it away so I complain.
But then you will just open your, let's say, NWN2 and see that your character have different dialogue option for having high Wisdom and think "oh thats the fabled RPG that crazy person was talking about". It is one else if line of "programing" with one variable check plus the extra dialogue. Surely Bioware can't afford that much investment. Let's instead throw in flashy sword fights.

 

Inquisition is a roleplaying game. You are creating and roleplaying your character. There are many opportunities to express your character's opinions on varying issues, and there's room for a range of quite different personalities. You're not restricted to a certain type of character, and certainly not to playing somebody else's character.

That is the difference between a true roleplaying game and a game that merely has RPG elements. Inquisition does better at this than a good many games, so I consider it a good RPG. Do I consider it mechanically solid? No. I actually rather hate the combat mechanics, and indeed many other individual gameplay elements. However, there have been multiple other RPGs with poor or very bad combat that I've liked. DA:I is hardly the first. (Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura comes to mind).

I'd prefer, greatly, if the combat were more as detailed in the beginning of this thread -- but to me, an RPG hinges on making and controlling your character, and more specifically, their personality. Combat and game mechanics can be well integrated into that, and that is assuredly preferable. It's not the case in DA:I, unfortunately, yet DA:I remains an RPG.



In my opinion, they haven't -- or more to the point, the JRPG style of game does not qualify as a true RPG to me. You are almost always handed somebody else's character to play, and not given much choice in how you play them. That is not an RPG to me. Planescape: Torment is the closest to that which I'll call a real RPG, and it's on the edge (squeaking in because you have such complete control over the character's personality), even though it is one of my favourite games.

Well, as I stated, if you go by this definition Saints Row is a RPG. You create a character and role play it. It is YOUR character after all. As for choices, it depends to what extent you are considering choices because it can either include both Saints Row and Inquisition or exclude both. Of course it is not only about Saints Row I just picked this one, but there are lots of others game that fit this description of what is RPG.

[katokires]

the games you want dont sell enough to make BioWare a viable company anymore, they moved on, so should you an a rather lot of ppl on these forums, go hang out on kickstarter or something an back the game you want made, the big companies simply know where the money is and are catering to that market, and rightly so

You really think that huh? Well they didn't even try to make a game like that with Inquisition budget. Sales os Inquisition is not proportionally bigger than Origins to the extra money they spent. It is more about entering the world of the filthy consoles and that's it. I can assure you that if Bioware had not sold the soul to EA and made games for PC only no one would complain because games would be great and not this bullshit.

[Feranel]

So you are saying that DA:I has no randomness, no abilities that work or do not work based on a set of core stats modified by chance?

[wolfhowwl]

Isn't DA:O the only BioWare game since 2003 where PC was the lead platform?

 

They haven't been a PC oriented developer for a long time.

[DragonAddict]

Agreed. Since DAO, its all console controllers now and thats not what got Bioware going in the first place, PC gaming did this.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I'll agree that DAI isn't particularly interesting from a mechanical standpoint. I wish it were, but it isn't.

But I'm also hard pressed to find a modern CRPG that is. Even CRPGs based on D&D tend to strip out the complexity and nuance in the mechanics.

Fallout has typically done a fairly good job. What else? Drakensang? Wasteland?

[DragonAddict]

I think games today are all about the graphics, sex options, bells and whistles, action, hack and slash and simplicity, to cover up a short, poor story line of a game.

 

Quick development times today, 2 years?

 

More about the short term immediate profits.

[Sylvius the Mad]

2) There were almost 0 interactions with non quest quest givers in BG1. BG2 was similar. DAI has far more dialogue with every NPC except the random zone ones who have as much dialogue as in BG1.
3) BG1 and BG2 had no NPC schedules.

NWN was BioWare's high-water mark on this point.

I do wish we could have meaningless conversations with random NPCs, but having all of the lines voices basically guarantees this won't happen.

I still think NWN was BioWare's best use of voice-acting, because that use was limited. Voicing every line simply carries too great an opportunity cost.

4) DAI is about as easy as BG1 on normal. It lacks the rock paper scissors mage duels of BG2 but that's a good thing. D&D in general is about nothing more than melee auto-attack until lv. 5 or so.

As I have yet die in DAI, I have to disagree with that. I played both games on the setting just above default, and BG was vastly harder. Brief inattention could easily kill the party, particularly early in the game. But in DAI, with its undocumented mechanics, I have yet to see a full party wipe. DAI is clearly easier.

I do think players who want DAI's mechanics to be interesting in and of itself (without regard for the story or setting or characters) are incredibly poorly served by DAI's lack of documentation. If this game were well-documented, players (like the OP) could then see the mechanics and do all the theorycrafting that he clearly misses.

Hiding the mechanics from us serves no one.

[_Aine_]

Drakensang is actually the closest somewhat modern game that I would call a "classic" RPG.  

 

And I am not going to lie, I wish SOME of the complexity from an RPG like that would make it back into gaming.  Even as an OPTIONAL advanced toggle.  Everything seems so instant-gratification already-configured lately.  That said, DAI *is* an RPG, and an enjoyable one.  Do I wish it were fleshed out more in terms of customization and options?  Sure, of course!  But for a "today" RPG - it's amongst the best at the moment.    I'm enjoying it, even if it isn't everything I want to call an RPG.  Games have moved on and become faster paced, less thinking in general, more action.  It is what it is.  

 

But if you take DAI and compare it to the current market?  Totally an RPG.  

 

 

I'll agree that DAI isn't particularly interesting from a mechanical standpoint. I wish it were, but it isn't.

But I'm also hard pressed to find a modern CRPG that is. Even CRPGs based on D&D tend to strip out the complexity and nuance in the mechanics.

Fallout has typically done a fairly good job. What else? Drakensang? Wasteland?

[Sylvius the Mad]

I dislike the extent to which D&D is held up as the platonic ideal of RPG design, when there were other better systems available, even at the peak of D&D's popularity.

My favourite was always GURPS, but what about Paranoia?

[DiscoGhost]

this is still an rpg. its not your classic table top dnd rpg where you can do anything. but in the end i play the roll of the inquisitor and decide to be nice, neutral, or a jerk. all having the same end goal. 

[DragonAddict]

I would say its more a linear, simplified, limitied, hack and slash, short story with great graphics controller game than RPG's of the recent past.

[Remmirath]

A CRPG will never have the variety of options available that a tabletop game will, because the computer -- unlike the GM -- cannot improvise or switch the design of a game based on what the PC ends up wanting to do. Combat, however, is something that a CRPG could in theory do better than a tabletop game, but unfortunately very few even try to take advantage of that. A computer game could mitigate or even eliminate the inherent clunkiness and dragging that comes with extremely detailed combat in a face-to-face game, calculating things such as in-depth injuries and more options for realistic fighting with ease. Alas, what we often end up is simpler rather than more complex combat in games.
 

Well, as I stated, if you go by this definition Saints Row is a RPG. You create a character and role play it. It is YOUR character after all. As for choices, it depends to what extent you are considering choices because it can either include both Saints Row and Inquisition or exclude both. Of course it is not only about Saints Row I just picked this one, but there are lots of others game that fit this description of what is RPG.

I've never played Saint's Row, so I can't very well say -- but by that description, yes, I expect that I would count it as an RPG. Moreso than a game where you cannot make your character, certainly. It would depend on the amount of actual dialogue choices you have, because what I care about with regards to whether a game is or is not an RPG is moments where you can demonstrate your character's personality, not moments where you can affect the world.

However, looking it up, it looks like it might be one of those games where you can decide what your character looks like, but nothing else. That doesn't count. I can't say whether or not I'd consider it an RPG for sure without playing it, and it appears to be a console-only game, so that's not happening.
 

I dislike the extent to which D&D is held up as the platonic ideal of RPG design, when there were other better systems available, even at the peak of D&D's popularity.

I must agree here. D&D has its good points, but it also rather definitely has its issues. I do feel that both 2nd and 3rd edition work reasonably well for CRPGs (especially 2nd), but there are many other systems out there. Personally, I prefer Rolemaster. Traveller would probably work out quite well in a CRPG as well.

[DiscoGhost]

I would say its more a linear, simplified, limitied, hack and slash, short story with great graphics controller game than RPG's of the recent past.

 

this about are non linear you can get. you can screw around in hinterlands, stormcoast, fallow mire, val, hidden oasis before even having to pick a side of mages vs templars. just becuase it doesnt fit your definition doesnt mean your right. see below for the generally excepted definition by the community. 

 

 

 

A role-playing game (RPG and sometimes roleplaying game^[1][2]) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making or character development.^[3]Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.^[4] 

http://en.wikipedia....e-playing_game 

[Octarin]

And I still haven't gotten round to figuring out what the newyear buttwhine's all about over here. I think I'm cool with that actually come to think on it.

[DragonAddict]

I've played games all the way back from the first Ultima game.......waaaay back and games today that claim to be RPG's might get away with it by definition, but in actuality, they are no more than great graphics, linear (but try to fool you into thinking non linear), limiting, short poor stories, plots and bad filler side quests, hack and slash, dumbed down skill sets and trees, etc. Times have changed and not for the better. Remember when games took 4 years to make? They were smash hits.......now its 2 years and meh......profits, all about the immediate profits now. The quality and well written stories, plots and side quests aren't there anymore for some reason.