What's the ONE Thing You've Wanted In RPG's Over The Past Decade?

[rjshae]

 

 

There are very few people like you demanding really exciting story. There are not much people like me demanding reasonably exciting story. Most of the people demands something with next-gen graphics and as simple in gameplay ways as possible, nothing more.

 

I'm going to disagree with this statement.  I think there are a lot of people demanding RPG's with a great story and I would point to the amount of highly funded kickstarters that promised just this as evidence.  You can even look to the mainstream games such as Bioshock and Mass Effect and their success to see how popular a good story can be (or Mass Effect 3's ending for how disappointed people can get when their story expectations are not met). 

 

I do agree publishers are too focused on the next-Gen graphics and games that can bring in hundreds of millions in revenue.  I think if a publisher opened a department willing to create lower budget (5-10 million dollar) rpg games that are well polished they could have a really popular (and lower risk) arm of business.  It would also allow them to have a side of their business that could create new brands with minimal risk instead of always having to expand on existing brands.

 

If you look at the sales figures for 2013, people are mainly drawn to action-adventure console games with lots of eye candy. Financially it makes sense for gaming companies to be focusing their bigger efforts there. But there is always room for niche markets.

[CommentTater]

WAAAAY off topic with the industry talk.

[talharbash]

 

A thoroughly tested RPG that doesn't ship with a million bugs.

 

I'm hoping the QA staff that got hired at Obsidian find all the bugs so they can be fixed and the game shipped properly.

 

A lot of backers will be in the early beta test for the game so i suspect that final bug count will be minimal at the release. Just look how long WL2 is getting delayed because of this kind of testing and KS approach, and backers do not have much problem with that (at least I get this feeling). If I am not mistaken, originally WL2 should be released in 2013 and its not going to happen

 

 

WL2 is delayed indefinitely because, frankly, the current state of it is very incomplete. It's not because bugs need to be fixed. We're talking about a combat system that's essentially ordering everyone to shoot, then clicking on end turn. That's the tactical depth of it at this time.

[Plutone00]

RPG genre became a mainstream not so long ago. What does completely ordinary guy want from RPG-game? He realizes that there must be some story, maybe big one, some quests, some fighting and stuff like that, but he doesn't like reading or figuring things out, he just wants some fun for his money. Maybe it would be better for him to choose shooter or something else in that case, but he doesn't want it, he was told that RPGs are cool games for real men, so he starts the game and gets bored with it in a few minutes because it's accidentally turned out that game's name is Planescape:Torment. And most of the people are of this type. You can say that such games are meant for people of the other type, and there is indeed a lot of people enjoying such games, there's plenty of them, and yet they're just minority. Majority doesn't like thinking while playing, and this is never going to change. That's what I was talking about. They don't want to think but still want to play RPG, they don't realize this genre requires brain using from player, and developers have to satisfy their needs for the sake of business. All for player's comfort, and genre's classic can go to hell, it's too old anyway.

 

That's why we have terrific hybrids of seemingly good ideas (attempt to give something worthy to "core audience") with drastic simplifications that kills all impression. Skyrim, for example. Or Dragon Age 2. It is likely that gamedevs don't like what they're doing themselves, but they haven't any other options, they must make games that are able to get sold to majority. So it's useless to wait real RPG-game from big studios nowadays, they don't want to risk their money with niche project.

 

 

Bioware tried to appeal to "majority" with Mass Effect 3 and look where it got them. Making RPGs accesable to new players in order to expand the fanbase is one thing, but trying to appease casual gamers is a whole another matter. Downgrading to casual level never worked out favorably for RPGs. It's hurting the quality of the product, alienates core audience and casual players don't care in the end anyway. They can be lured by nice graphics and big explosions, but then Battlefield 2001 or Crysis 99 is announced with nicer graphics and bigger explosions. all casual players are immideatly placing preorders, joining the hype and abandoning whatever RPG they were playing for 5 minutes, writing on their facebooks or whatever how awful that casual RPG was (and they are right in this case) and how they'll never waste money  (if they even bought it in the first place) on another one again and can't wait for Battlefield 2001 or Crysis 99.

 

And there are indie developers. They don't make game for money, they make game because they want to make a game, and they can afford to make niche game, but they're not professionals and can hardly provide quality we're used to. They have plenty of ideas and trying to get sponsors here and there, but usually fails.

 

 

You clearly are not famillar with the indepent scene. Just becease studio is independent, it doesn't apply that they are amateurs. You'd be suprised how many skilled people are out there in addition to "ex"pros. I'm not sure if giving other studios a plug is allowed on this forum, so the simplest way for you to become familliar with the scene is to check out kickstarter game projects http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?category_id=12&sort=most_funded other than PoE and TToN. And yet another suprise: some of the project descriptons come dangerously close (not close enough, though) to the dream RPG I've been talking about, they've been fully funded and their budgets don't look like a small cup of coffee.

[whodey85]

What I've wanted is a challenge, risk and reward. An unforgiving world just like UO in its prime. There is absolutely no risk in games anymore, just constant rewards.

[CommentTater]

What I've wanted is a challenge, risk and reward. An unforgiving world just like UO in its prime. There is absolutely no risk in games anymore, just constant rewards.

 

Pretty true, even really hard games like Dark Souls don't require much risk. It's definitely rare when games actually can cause you to be significantly set back by a poor choice.

[Caerdon]

 

A thoroughly tested RPG that doesn't ship with a million bugs.

 

I'm hoping the QA staff that got hired at Obsidian find all the bugs so they can be fixed and the game shipped properly.

 

A lot of backers will be in the early beta test for the game so i suspect that final bug count will be minimal at the release. Just look how long WL2 is getting delayed because of this kind of testing and KS approach, and backers do not have much problem with that (at least I get this feeling). If I am not mistaken, originally WL2 should be released in 2013 and its not going to happen

 

Wasteland 2 beta only includes about one third of the locations that are in the final game. Lots of gear, enemies, scripted events and even skills that will not be tested with a wide audience. Final bug count will not be minimal.

 

Personally I don't really care that much how buggy PoE will be. There will be lots of bugs. What I do care about is that Obsidian cares about them - enough to fix them whenever they are discovered.

[Osvir]

Challenge.

That sounds a bit arrogant, but what I individually mean is that I want a gritty and authentic challenge, something that makes it feel more immersive. Immersive challenge and not just challenge for challenge sake.

Dark Souls has an immersive challenge and difficulty, whilst Skyrim has just stronger enemies and more hitpoints (IIRC). The latter is simplistic and tedious difficulty (I can still take out enemies in the exact same way as I took them out on the easiest difficulty, but it'd just take longer), the former is a world built and designed to be challenging and immersive in being so.

Dark Souls achieves this already, so why do I feel like I want that for another RPG? Because it's bloody fantastic design for one, but it's also something I would love to see in Pillars of Eternity and it's type of gamestyle. I don't expect to see anything of the sort, but I still want to see it. No, not that the characters goes out in one hit, but the "artificial difficulty" Dark Souls manages to pull off, the concept and the authenticity. The lore speaks of a cruel world, then shouldn't the world be cruel in turn?

If the lore says that Vithracks can manipulate souls and possess bodies (dunno about the latter), then they should be able to do just that.

Immersive and Authentic Challenge. That's my "one thing I'd like to see".

[Caerdon]

Challenge.

 

I agree. I just hope they keep the challenge believable, that it actually makes sense in the context. For example, a simple city guard should not pose a challenge to an experienced, high-level warrior, even if he's guarding a city only discovered late in the game. At the same time, no enemy that can use a weapon proficiently should ever become completely trivial.

 

I absolutely hated how every single ordinary mook had +3 equipment in Throne of Bhaal. Granted, that was because D&D is inherently flawed and broken, but still.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

A thoroughly tested RPG that doesn't ship with a million bugs.

 

I'm hoping the QA staff that got hired at Obsidian find all the bugs so they can be fixed and the game shipped properly.

 

A lot of backers will be in the early beta test for the game so i suspect that final bug count will be minimal at the release. Just look how long WL2 is getting delayed because of this kind of testing and KS approach, and backers do not have much problem with that (at least I get this feeling). If I am not mistaken, originally WL2 should be released in 2013 and its not going to happen

 

Personally I don't really care that much how buggy PoE will be. There will be lots of bugs. What I do care about is that Obsidian cares about them - enough to fix them whenever they are discovered.

 

 

If it will be the sort of bugs I've encountered in the WL2 beta - game crashes whenever you're trying to access the world map, saves getting corrupted, fps drops to unplayable levels - I do care about whether they're in or not.

[Caerdon]

 

 

 

A thoroughly tested RPG that doesn't ship with a million bugs.

 

I'm hoping the QA staff that got hired at Obsidian find all the bugs so they can be fixed and the game shipped properly.

 

A lot of backers will be in the early beta test for the game so i suspect that final bug count will be minimal at the release. Just look how long WL2 is getting delayed because of this kind of testing and KS approach, and backers do not have much problem with that (at least I get this feeling). If I am not mistaken, originally WL2 should be released in 2013 and its not going to happen

 

Personally I don't really care that much how buggy PoE will be. There will be lots of bugs. What I do care about is that Obsidian cares about them - enough to fix them whenever they are discovered.

 

 

If it will be the sort of bugs I've encountered in the WL2 beta - game crashes whenever you're trying to access the world map, saves getting corrupted, fps drops to unplayable levels - I do care about whether they're in or not.

 

 

Luckily those are the kind of universal bugs that are relatively easy to find and fix with the help of a wide beta test. Hopefully both Obsidian and inXile will make fixing such bugs a priority.

 

I haven't played WL2 myself yet - I missed the Kickstarter back in the day - but I'm under the impression that inXile has already made some real progress with the help of the beta community.

[Milten]

Being able to play as "event maker". Protagonist actions are usually just a reaction on someone's else actions (villain's mostly). There's nothing wrong with that, but I'd like to see it the other way around for a change. Like when a world reacts on your attempts to reach your goal.

[Few]

Being able to play through the story without ever having to use violence or go into combat! Although i'm hoping torment will give me this

 

P.S. I know this isn't going to be possible in PoE, it still looks amazing anyway