Is this the future of CRPG's?

[Child of Flame]

Explore your cd and you shall find it. You need Acrobat reader. Which is on the CD as well. Page A-10

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Thanks, off to look and try to play it again.

[Oerwinde]

Personally, I was alot more immersed by IWD than ToEE, despite IWD's age.  And I certainly preferred the IE's style of D&D combat to ToEE's, not because I hate TB (I love TB strategy games and roguelikes), but because ToEE's TB was placed within the context of a rush job dungeon-crawl.  It could've been great, if ToEE itself was great, but combat mechanis alone does not a game make, and I doubt publishers elsewhere learned much from ToEE other than not to release a buggy, unfinished game.  It certainly did not bring about the second age of TB CRPG's, if that's what some are implying.

 

Heck, even Troika realized that when they dropped TB for RT in VTM.

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I think IWD with ToEE's combat system would have been a dungeon crawl masterpiece.

[roshan]

Servant of eru, you just need to click on a door in selection mode to open it. Thats 2 clicks at the most.

[LdyShayna]

I agree with the idea that first-person immersion has it's value in a CRPG and I also understand the commercial attraction of first-person CRPG's being able to attract a cross-over audience of FPS fans.  That said, one problem I see is creating the party element in a first-person RPG.  Is that even possible? 

 

Reactions?

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I think this was just the article author showing his own biases. During NWN's development, I saw several people claim point to that and MMORPGs and say that singleplayer RPGs were going the way of the dodo. Didn't happen. Still not happening.

 

I've seen people claim on the Jade Empire forums that active combat like that is the wave of the future. Again, unlikely.

 

It's just, IMHO, that when people see a new innovation that matches their preferences better than what came before, they make the (somewhat natural) assumption that that is THE wave of the future - what everything will go to. After all, if THEY like it, everyone does.

 

There's room in the game market - and ESPECIALLY the RPG market which still doesn't have enough title to make me happy - for various styles of games. I think there will continue to be various styles, and see no big movement in the foreseeable future to just one variety.

 

Of course, perhaps I am biased, as I dislike FPV, feel it doesn't add any immersion for me, and thoroughly hope that the industry will continue to make games I like. Heh

[Sarkus]

I think this was just the article author showing his own biases.  During NWN's development, I saw several people claim point to that and MMORPGs and say that singleplayer RPGs were going the way of the dodo.  Didn't happen.  Still not happening.

 

I don't know, I'm pretty concerned about the lack of RPG's under development right now in general. If you take out the ones that are going to be for both PC and console then it's even smaller. Truth be told, I'm getting some of my RPG fix these days by playing games like Half-Life 2 that at least have some RPG elements because the pickings are so slim now.

 

I've seen people claim on the Jade Empire forums that active combat like that is the wave of the future.  Again, unlikely.

 

There's room in the game market - and ESPECIALLY the RPG market which still doesn't have enough title to make me happy - for various styles of games.  I think there will continue to be various styles, and see no big movement in the foreseeable future to just one variety.

 

As gaming becomes a mainstream hobby, the big money will follow the masses. Traditional RPG's are being marginalized and I think we are seeing that with the demise of Troika, etc. Some aspects of RPG's are not attractive to the mass audience - I work at a game store and today had a conversation with a guy who was complaining about how he was 15 hours into KOTOR 1 and how he thought that was too long. Guys like that are now the norm, not the exception.

 

Does this mean traditional RPG's will disappear altogether? No. What it does mean is that if you want a "big budget" RPG it will make concessions to the mass market to pay it's development costs and we'll see shorter games, first-person perspective, real time combat, console simplified control, etc. Bethesda and Bioware are the only really flourishing RPG developers right now (at least among those who still care about the PC market to any real degree) and both are making these concessions in their games. Troika tried it with Bloodlines. Obsidian is accepting this model as well.

 

Those of us who want more traditional RPG's will have to settle for smaller developers and dated graphics. At least, that's what I hope will happen because right now there don't seem to be many entrepreneur RPG developers that realize they need to radically rethink the development business model. We need more Jeff Vogels.

[Child of Flame]

I think if small RPG houses were willing to go the Direct Distribution way, and cut out the publishers, they'd still be able to make similar amounts of money without making concessions. Of course, this theory is just pulled out of my @ss, but they'd be able to reach pretty much all their normal customers, while cutting out the middleman, or using gimmicks or brandnames to make sales.

 

Myself personally, I can dig both styles. I thought Bloodlines FPV was done well (but I'm apparently in the minority), and the combat was fun enough. I loved the story and gritty feel too.

 

@roshan: Unless the door is an auto-closing one, and then that complicates things somewhat. The cursor's even more of a pain in combat, not only is it sometimes hard to tell who is a friend or a foe due to the fact that my party's models are the same as many of the gangsters, but also having to switch between the movement and attack options, having to inch the cursor over every single bit of the screen around my character to figure out how many action points a move would take, and picking up items is a whole 'NOTHER grievance. I'm getting the hang of it though, and I've now got Dogmeat, he's nifty. :D

[Volourn]

"I work at a game store and today had a conversation with a guy who was complaining about how he was 15 hours into KOTOR 1 and how he thought that was too long. Guys like that are now the norm, not the exception."

 

Proof?

[Sarkus]

"I work at a game store and today had a conversation with a guy who was complaining about how he was 15 hours into KOTOR 1 and how he thought that was too long. Guys like that are now the norm, not the exception."

 

Proof?

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I can only base that on personal experience, for what it's worth. But what I mentioned above is not an isolated incident. In general, as gaming has gotten more mainstream there are a higher percentage of casual gamers who don't want to invest more than 10-15 hours in any game. While most of these are coming from the console side, that does represent 80% (or more) of the gaming market now and that's the market most publishers are going after.

[Volourn]

That explains the Ff series continued success in spite of their usually long length..

[Child of Flame]

That explains the Ff series continued success  in spite of their usually long length..

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Is this Volourn...making an actually...LOGICAL, point?!!

 

 

I would like to point out though, that most of the FF fans I've met have been either

 

A). Kids without any obligations who could plug away at that POS game all day.

B). Grownups who wish they were kids who plug away at that POS game all day even though there's stuff they should really get to.

C). People who suffer from OCD.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Is this Volourn...making an actually...LOGICAL, point?!!

 

 

I would like to point out though, that most of the FF fans I've met have been either

 

A).  Kids without any obligations who could plug away at that POS game all day. 

B).  Grownups who wish they were kids who plug away at that POS game all day even though there's stuff they should really get to. 

C).  People who suffer from OCD.

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Well aside from your small sample of FF fans, the biggest and most obvious difference is that FF isnt made for the western market it's made for the Japanese market first and foremost and so is not subject to the same market forces as Western games.

 

The new FF is a "bit" different but it's still recognisable.

 

EA had a crack at the FF model with Middle Earth. But missed the point by using so many voiced over movie clips (lazy buggers). They also tried to emulate FireEmblem, but missed the point there as well. Although I enjoyed the game for its randomness which is missing in most games of that type.

[Sarkus]

That explains the Ff series continued success  in spite of their usually long length..

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There are certainly exceptions, but the Final Fantasy series has already compromised in two of the four areas I mentioned in my post. First, Final Fantasy has console controls (obviously), and second the recent and known future Final Fantasy games have adopted real-time combat and abandoned turn based.

 

I would also point out that the number of RPG's on this generation of consoles is less than what the original Playstation had alone on the last generation.

 

Finally, even the console RPG's are beginning to reduce their length - case in point the recently released Xenosaga II, which at 25 hours is half or less of Xenosaga I just a few years ago.

 

My argument is simple: big budget game development follows the money and the money is in consoles (80% of the market) and consoles are increasingly dominated by casual gamers who want shorter games.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

That explains the Ff series continued success  in spite of their usually long length..

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There are certainly exceptions, but the Final Fantasy series has already compromised in two of the four areas I mentioned in my post. First, Final Fantasy has console controls (obviously), and second the recent and known future Final Fantasy games have adopted real-time combat and abandoned turn based.

 

I would also point out that the number of RPG's on this generation of consoles is less than what the original Playstation had alone on the last generation.

 

Finally, even the console RPG's are beginning to reduce their length - case in point the recently released Xenosaga II, which at 25 hours is half or less of Xenosaga I just a few years ago.

 

My argument is simple: big budget game development follows the money and the money is in consoles (80% of the market) and consoles are increasingly dominated by casual gamers who want shorter games.

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Final Fantasy is a CONSOLE series so the idea it's compromised using console controls is just a bit laughable. It's also constantly messing around with different systems so just because the next one is using something different it's by no means an indicator. Just like FFX-2 went back to ATB after FFX being TB.

 

I'd bet you were totally wrong there,this generations consoles has had a LOT of RPGs.

 

I wouldnt call that a universal truth. Read the article on what do the Japanese look for in a game on gamespot. It's very interesting, it also explains why games like KOTOR dont have much impact over there.

[NeverwinterKnight]

I wouldnt call that a universal truth. Read the article on what do the Japanese look for in a game on gamespot. It's very interesting, it also explains why games like KOTOR dont have much impact over there.

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care to either explain to me, or link to the article about what japanese look for in a game?

 

that quote got me curious. :D

[Judge Hades]

I don't play First Person CRPGs. Hell, I played Morrowind completely in the third person. First person is for shooters only.

[Niten_Ryu]

I don't care about viewpoints. I can play game no matter what viewpoint it uses.

 

Right now best viewpoint seems to be 3rd person free rotating camera centered to character. It's very popular in MMOGs and it's also used in KotOR series. Realtime (virtual turns/ticks/whatever) hybrid with pause merged with combat AI (Jade Empire) and player controlled party AI (Rainbow Six, Freedom Fighters) might be next big thing.

 

Graphic engines allow any type of viewpoint. If developers want to spend time, they can make any viewpoint work (ie. fix z-axis movement/environment problems in bird eye or 3/4 view).

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Sidestepping the "what view I like" and "how it messes with the distinction between character and player" comments, I just want to add I think it's pretty weird that someone would mention the current graphical technology has contributing to first-person immersion in CRPGs when first-person immersion in CRPGs has happened (or has been possible) for a long time, certainly way before what can be currently done. While I'm definetely not an expert on engine possibilities (or barely aware of them, even), it just seems to me that there was much that was possible back then that is still possible now, but that it's being done more often nowadays (like destructible terrain, for instance, which has been possible for a long time but seems to be used in more games today).

[SonicMage117]

There's no way for anyone to truly tell what the future of Crpg's is or what it will be.

 

We're the community, it's all speculation and biased assumption at this point. The thing is that the industry changes so rapidly and is always full of surprises so there's no way in which we can put something in a box.

 

Speculating is always fun though lol

[IndiraLightfoot]

Alright! This thread-necroing takes the cake! Over 12 years!!!

 

I'm just stunned.

 

Well, it's cool to see that Volourn hasn't changed one bit. Pretty consistent, if you ask me.

And Oerwinde was just as nice-looking as he is now.

 

Now, let's put this lich back into the tomb of horrors.

[Darkpriest]

Why? we can now evaluate how they actually evolved

[SonicMage117]

Lol True. I didn't realize that this thread was from that far back. I didn't see the date (hard to see things on my dying phone).

[ilhdr]

Where's the rat meme?

[Leferd]

Lol True. I didn't realize that this thread was from that far back. I didn't see the date (hard to see things on my dying phone).

Lols. You're necroposting a mass number of topics over a decade old from a phone?

[Fenixp]

Where's the rat meme?

Did someone mention rats?

 

 

He's not a meme, but... He's a rat!

Edited March 27, 2017 by Fenixp

[Lexx]

So, how did CRPGs turned out? Anyone got an opinion?