PoE's nostalgia factor vs continuing a genre

[kaiki]

I am almost 40 so 2002 feels almost contemporary. Nostalgia seems weird for something so recent. I thought I backed PoE because I liked that sort of game. To say otherwise seems to suggest I play RPGs out of nostalgia for the first time I played any RPG of any sort ever.

 

I mean sure they said it would be a game in the genre of the IE games. Well so what? Are EA's FIFA games based on nostalgia for football?

 

Am I wrong about this? I just seems a very strange use of nostalgia. I am not playing this game to reminisce about 2002 no more than I eat pizza to remember a pizza I ate back in 1991.

 

 

Then the thread is in agreement. There has been gross misuse of the term nostalgia when gaming media has talked about PoE ^.^

[abaris]

 

 There has been gross misuse of the term nostalgia when gaming media has talked about PoE ^.^

 

 

Well, gaming media and gross misuse kinda go hand in hand.

 

Funny, and that might be some real piece of nostalgia, I remember a time when gaming mags didn't automatically overrate so called AAA games. But that was when game development was a competitive market and well before major shareholding corporations started to eat studios alive.

Edited June 5, 2015 by abaris

[kaiki]

 

 

Funny, and that might be some real piece of nostalgia, I remember a time when gaming mags didn't automatically overrate so called AAA games.

 

There was a time when there were gaming mags!?

 

j/k ^.^

[Labadal]

Nostalgia is the biggest reason. But at the same time, the games weren't bad at the time of not being developed anymore. There were just other platforms and genres that seemed more interesting for publishers. Now that crowd funding is a thing, it was actaully possible for some developers to gauge interest in the genre via different campaigns.

 

I've replayed the IE games, Arcanum and some more of the classics over the past three years and the games are still some of the best, even when looking for issues within said games. Therefore, to me, it is not only nostalgia.

[Fardragon]

I think there is an inherent value in top down and isometric gameplay which was lost for a time in the rush to 3D.

 

Not just nostalgia, the format offers something 3D first and 3rd person games do not.

[Labadal]

I think there is an inherent value in top down and isometric gameplay which was lost for a time in the rush to 3D.

 

Not just nostalgia, the format offers something 3D first and 3rd person games do not.

I agree. Also, if I'm playing a game with a party with more than four characters, isometric is the only way to go if I am truly going to have fun with the combat. Fixed camera, with gorgeous 2D environments and I am in gaming heaven.

[Rosveen]

I don't feel nostalgia. I can't. I was a child when the IE games out, I didn't play them until only a few years ago - in fact, I wasn't much of a gamer at all before 2010. But when I did finally play them, I greatly enjoyed their style, party-based gameplay and roleplaying opportunities. They are still good 15 years later (modded, of course. Don't make me play BG1 without Trilogy, my eyes will bleed.); there is something in them I usually can't find in modern AAA games. I like tactical play, but action RPGs are all the rage now. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I crave diversity. I adore the Elder Scrolls series, but it's a completely different animal. Bioware? I replayed DA:O many times, but am I really supposed to eat up its sequels with a smile on my face? You all know what they're like. So I'm back to Kickstarter and Pillars or Shadowrun, not because of nostalgia but because they are fun. It's that simple.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Rosveen

[View619]

So I'm back to Kickstarter and Pillars or Shadowrun, not because of nostalgia but because they are fun. It's that simple.

 

Hit the nail on the head for me.

[abaris]

I don't feel nostalgia. I can't. I was a child when the IE games out, I didn't play them until only a few years ago - in fact, I wasn't much of a gamer at all before 2010. But when I did finally play them, I greatly enjoyed their style, party-based gameplay and roleplaying opportunities. They are still good 15 years later (modded, of course. Don't make me play BG1 without Trilogy ); there is something in them I usually can't find in modern AAA games. I like tactical play, but action RPGs are all the rage now. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I crave diversity. I adore the Elder Scrolls series, but it's a completely different animal. Bioware? I replayed DA:O many times, but am I really supposed to eat up its sequels with a smile on my face? You all know what they're like. So I'm back to Kickstarter and Pillars or Shadowrun, not because of nostalgia but because they are fun. It's that simple.

 

I was already in my mid 30ies when the original IE games came out. But back then there was that cultural war between macs and PCs. I had a lot of layout and graphics work to do and so Mac was the logical choice, since most businesses I worked with operated Mac systems and compatibility was kind of an issue in the late 90ies. These games weren't ported to mac systems. You could run them if you installed virtual PC, but that really wasn't fun, since it only used virtual memory, which resulted in a very laggy experience. You could run civilization builders like Pharao, but that was the best, programs like that could manage.

 

Personally I come from the old pen and paper days, which we played during the 80ies. And so my expectation, when it comes to role playing games, may be even higher than others. Story and customization comes before combat in any case. So what the industry forks out under the flag of RPG these days reallly doesn't do. For me it's just cheap console hack and slash with a few shiny graphic elements to attract casuals. So yes, I kind of feel the same. Even more so, since games are a kind of escapism for me. I want to dive into that world and get lost in it to forget the everyday struggle.