Formulaic and Unimaginative Gameworlds

[Damned Registrations]

Like with everything in life, if you want to enjoy your stuff, you have to be selective. Plenty of good games being made today, just ignore the industry and the media whores as a whole.

This, a thousand times over. People need to get over their graphics whoring selves and leave the AAA games to rot on the shelf instead of playing every single one and bickering over whether it's slightly better or worse than all the other formulaic money makers.

Go play Caves of Qud. Find a village in the desert policed by a cult of machine worshippers, explore a cave full of burning asphalt, become a mutant with 4 legs that can burrow through walls and get killed by a giant ape worshiped as a god. Stop bitching about elves because there are none.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

by Ogre piloted bi-planes

Those are clearly monoplanes like Fokker Eindecker.

But otherwise you're right. I blame 3d graphics and standardisation of gameplay.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Be careful what you wish for. Fallout 3 has all the things you listed in some form or another (well, Harold is not a party member, but close enough).

Doesn't really diminish his point as the problem there lies in execution. You could have the most interesting concept imaginable and Bethesduh will still produce shit with it.

 

[B0rt]

Have to agree that the lack of creativity in mainstream titles is simply the inevitable result of video games becoming mainstream entertainment. Back when they were a niche form of entertainment the target audience overlapped with "tech people," was more solidly nerdly/high income and the titles produced for said audience were a bit smarter. Games written at that level are now niche, but the overall market is so large that it basically is not a problem, you can get excellent RPGs and such solely from tapping into that hardcore niche.

Over the last ~18 months I've had a pretty great time playing Age of Decadence, Underrail , Serpent in the Staglands, Sunless Sea, Caves of Qud, Consortium, Divinity:Original Dinner, Shadowrun 2: Run Faster, Rimworld, Dorfen Fortress, and more I'm forgetting... it doesn't exactly feel like we're crossing a desert right now. Maybe five years ago things were still looking bleak but I've been playing plenty of delightfully batshit titles lately, a pretty competitive lineup compared with what I was playing back in, say, '92.

So really the only "problem" with the market right now is that there are now a bunch of highly polished but stupid games on the market that I'm not interested in, in addition to the usual sorts of game I am. When PC games were a new phenomenon dependent on a smallish market of enthusiasts they enjoyed a brief respite from Sturgeon's Law, now that they are as mainstream as movies, books, TV, etc., they do not. Worrying about people enjoying DA:I seems to me similar to worrying about people enjoying the film "Suicide Squad" -- I mean, sure, it's a valid concern and all, but that awful movie didn't prevent "Midnight Special" from getting released, so who really gives a shit ? We just gotta encourage the dopes to try something decent from time to time while keeping in mind that most folks will be rubes, that just how it goes.






Also can't mention it enough: Minecraft is a great game. It belongs to hipsters in the same sense that oral sex belongs to hipsters: not at all. Seriously play some Hexxit on a little private server with your old D&D bros, it's fucking great. It's practically Multiplayer 3D Nethack, for cryin' out loud.

 

[Naveen]

Stuff

That is a global cultural trend that has affected fiction and fantastic literature, too. All those wacky plots, cross-genre settings, general lunacy, and unbounded imagination were common in fantasy's origins and the pulps, where that kind of stuff was more common and the dreaded worldbuilding obsession had not yet appeared. This:

Go play Caves of Qud. Find a village in the desert policed by a cult of machine worshippers, explore a cave full of burning asphalt, become a mutant with 4 legs that can burrow through walls and get killed by a giant ape worshiped as a god. Stop bitching about elves because there are none.

could be the kind fo story you would find in some old pulp magazine. However, the farther we get from those origins, the sources of inspiration get more derivative and twice or thrice removed from their original source. Still, not everything is hopeless because right now there is a revival of old-school fantasy and fiction, from the old-school revival (OSR) in RPG (people who look back at the D&D of the 70s), to self-published magazines that imitate the style and themes of the pulps. There are also many indie video games that, consciously or not, follow that trend. AAA developers are paranoid and fearful of change, so it will take them a lot of time to realize that when people say they want fantasy and wonder, they really mean it.

 

[V_K]

One is the unimaginative settings, the second are bland storylines, and the third is the lack of cool gameplay mechanics and world interaction. They are interconnected, sure, but still are distinct problems.

I think a - rather large - part of the problem is the very fact that setting and mechanics are designed separately from each other.
For example, I remeber reading a criticism of NWN original campaign somewhere here (I didn't play it myself). The poster pointed out that in a game where resurrection spell exists and can be cast rather liberally, the plague plot makes very little sense - just raise them from the dead and be done with it. So here we have a story that doesn't acknowledge the mechanics and suffers from it.
An opposite example, of mechanics being loosely connected to the setting, would be blood magic in DAO. The lore presents it as super-nefarious and uber-powerful, but if you learn it, all you get is a couple of pretty meh spells. Not to mention that playing a mage generally makes you wonder very hard why is the world afraid of those weaklings so much.

 

[almondblight]

• Clear painted backgrounds of the fog of war by running around (or walking if the dev can be bothered to implement it) grinding trash mobs an recycling identikit crap.
  
• With an ocassional conversation, that usually has absolutely no affect on anything.
  
• No alternate means of transport.
  
• No spells that create new and alter existing gameplay, shit you're lucky if you can cast spells outside combat.
  
• If theres an interesting painted background you'll be lucky if you can interact with it in any way whatsoever.
  
• NPCs are just there to dispense exposition or provide flavour an have no life beyond most basic script. Its just fucking depressing.

You talking about Baldur's Gate or the Goldbox games?

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Origin really did create worlds.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I blame the idiots unable to find Caius Cosades.

 

[Lacrymas]

I think a - rather large - part of the problem is the very fact that setting and mechanics are designed separately from each other.
For example, I remeber reading a criticism of NWN original campaign somewhere here (I didn't play it myself). The poster pointed out that in a game where resurrection spell exists and can be cast rather liberally, the plague plot makes very little sense - just raise them from the dead and be done with it. So here we have a story that doesn't acknowledge the mechanics and suffers from it.
An opposite example, of mechanics being loosely connected to the setting, would be blood magic in DAO. The lore presents it as super-nefarious and uber-powerful, but if you learn it, all you get is a couple of pretty meh spells. Not to mention that playing a mage generally makes you wonder very hard why is the world afraid of those weaklings so much.

That's called a ludo-narrative dissonance, where the mechanics and "story"/setting contradict each other. It was the biggest problem of Bioshock, where you had a society that crumbled because of its economic and ideological model (objectivism), but you profited gameplay-wise by doing the same thing they did. A loooooooooooooooot of games exhibit this quality, but it was more subtle in Bioshock. Blood magic wasn't banned because it was super-nefarious and uber-powerful by itself, it was banned because it made it easier for demons to infest your body, also Blood Mage was a pretty overpowered specialization in its own right if used right.

Some people also mention that we get well-written indie/non-AAA RPGs, but I've yet to find one and I played them all. AoD comes somewhat close, but it's simply above average (for the video game industry), nothing spectacular or game-changing. Sure, they have good mechanics, but nowhere near good writing. If someone can enlighten me to some truly well-written examples, that'd be great.

 

[Brancaleone]

One is the unimaginative settings, the second are bland storylines, and the third is the lack of cool gameplay mechanics and world interaction. They are interconnected, sure, but still are distinct problems.

I think a - rather large - part of the problem is the very fact that setting and mechanics are designed separately from each other.

A very easy thing to happen if instead of designing something starting from an idea or a concept and then building upon it you simply go through a marketing checklist: a setting that would (allegedly) sell a lot, mechanics that would (allegedly) sell a lot, a storyline that would (allegedly) sell a lot, and so on, and cobble it all together. An approach which doesn't even need poor execution in order to fail, and it is assured to fail spectacularly if poor execution is involved.

 

[Neanderthal]

One is the unimaginative settings, the second are bland storylines, and the third is the lack of cool gameplay mechanics and world interaction. They are interconnected, sure, but still are distinct problems.

I think a - rather large - part of the problem is the very fact that setting and mechanics are designed separately from each other.

A very easy thing to happen if instead of designing something starting from an idea or a concept and then building upon it you simply go through a marketing checklist: a setting that would (allegedly) sell a lot, mechanics that would (allegedly) sell a lot, a storyline that would (allegedly) sell a lot, and so on, and cobble it all together. An approach which doesn't even need poor execution in order to fail, and it is assured to fail spectacularly if poor execution is involved.

Which is why as i've said afore that I like MCAs style o design, everything integrated an reinforcing each other like in Dead Money an Torment. He's wasted just writing if you ask me.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Remember when Kingdoms of Amalur was boasting about getting Salvatore to write their gameworld or lore or something like that?

 

[octavius]

Remember when Kingdoms of Amalur was boasting about getting Salvatore to write their gameworld or lore or something like that?

Only thing I remember about that game was those ridicilously oversized weapons. Even if the game mechanics and gameworld was good, I don't think I could have taken the game seriously.

 

[Brancaleone]

One is the unimaginative settings, the second are bland storylines, and the third is the lack of cool gameplay mechanics and world interaction. They are interconnected, sure, but still are distinct problems.

I think a - rather large - part of the problem is the very fact that setting and mechanics are designed separately from each other.

A very easy thing to happen if instead of designing something starting from an idea or a concept and then building upon it you simply go through a marketing checklist: a setting that would (allegedly) sell a lot, mechanics that would (allegedly) sell a lot, a storyline that would (allegedly) sell a lot, and so on, and cobble it all together. An approach which doesn't even need poor execution in order to fail, and it is assured to fail spectacularly if poor execution is involved.

Which is why as i've said afore that I like MCAs style o design, everything integrated an reinforcing each other like in Dead Money an Torment. He's wasted just writing if you ask me.

Yeah, I get the feeling that writers are being increasingly seen as the misplaced equivalent of script-doctors, that is, expected to somehow write a videogame out of the incongruous mess resulting from the kind of atrocious approaches to 'creation' (for a lack of a better word) that we've been talking about in this thread.

 

[abnaxus]

Only thing I remember about Banalur is Alyn Shir.

 

[V_K]

Remember when Kingdoms of Amalur was boasting about getting Salvatore to write their gameworld or lore or something like that?

In retrospect, it doesn't even make a lot of sense: when you need someone to develop a new setting, the writer, who is primarily known for his work with already established franchises, should hardly be your first choice.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

There are fifty times more people who are willing to spend on a series of distractions and sensory input than there are those who care about depth of systems or mechanics.

Which I completely not understand. Brainless movies can be sometimes fun, but brainless games are never fun. You can go through the motion in brainless movie and enjoy the spectacle, but if the game is brainless it is just boring. Games if they are brainless, they completely fail at what they should do do.

 

[Roqua]

That is fucking cool. Imagine this in a Planescape / Mask of the Betrayer kind of RPG - it would be awesome to see the corrupted Black City, being confronted by the Maker, finding out where the dwarves came from, meeting a betrayed Andraste, being corrupted by the old gods, etc... how many lies, plot twists and paths could such story have?

Sad part about said lore in DA is that it's all a lie due to the series having a axe to grind with their ersatz Catholic Church sockpuppet (which is becoming something of a Bioware stereotype now, look up the Crusades they created for TOR lore and the human-centric not-Catholic Church which led them against the poor Hutts and their slave owning empire).

All of that story is fiction created by the Chantry and the mystery around the Black City is that it was that way when the Tivinitar mages came to supposedly taint it. No one knows what caused the Darkspawn now, and sadly, I fully expect it to be no where near as interesting when the series finally gets around to reveling it.

In 20 years people will be going on about all the shit games today that are hipster fodder like Undertail, Stardew Valley, Micecraft, Binding of Issac, all the playformers besides Dex, etc. Just gimmicky hipster shit. As soon as tablets and phones can handle fancy smancy graphics all the development for them will be done by the new Bethesdas and Biowares spending 95% of the budget on superficial shit and playing it safe with dumbed down gameplay the largest mass of monkey markets will find playable, and this new phase of indie will be gone because most of the people who claim to like rpgs only like AAA console games with lite rpg elements.

Fuck you for comparing Underrail to those. It's a good solid game that delivered, especially with regard to those thread, a interesting different world in a way that had you collect and piece together things as you went along instead of having a massive lore dump at the opening. About the only problem with it's world is the fact that the protagonist knows nothing about the South Rail despite living in such a world, it cries out that you are a PC that has been injected in a world you know nothing about with no excuse for being so clueless.

Roqua said-

Some modern games do a wonderful job at creating a new world, such as Wasteland 2, AoD, and Underrail. Hell, Serpents in the Stagland is pretty fleshed out and unique.

Well fuck you for lacking basic reading comprehension. I specifically listed Underrail as an example of a great new game with a unique setting.

 

[Beastro]

Remember when Kingdoms of Amalur was boasting about getting Salvatore to write their gameworld or lore or something like that?

There was some novel elements to the Fae in it, like how they were bound by a cycle of story telling and were prisoners of fate as a result. A lot of the Fae quests revolve around the corruption taking place causing many Fae to rebel against their lot in life and live a free, human-like life not bound to repeat the same thing over again.

The only problem with that was the way that was conveyed was through breadcrumbs scattered through the questline and not pointed out directly, which in a better game, would be a really neat story telling convention, but in such bland, boring game it was too little too late to keep me intrigued.

That ties into how generic the game was, that there was nothing that stood out to get you interested in the game to give it the benefit of the doubt until it got better.

Fuck you for comparing Underrail to those. It's a good solid game that delivered, especially with regard to those thread, a interesting different world in a way that had you collect and piece together things as you went along instead of having a massive lore dump at the opening. About the only problem with it's world is the fact that the protagonist knows nothing about the South Rail despite living in such a world, it cries out that you are a PC that has been injected in a world you know nothing about with no excuse for being so clueless.

Roqua said-

Some modern games do a wonderful job at creating a new world, such as Wasteland 2, AoD, and Underrail. Hell, Serpents in the Stagland is pretty fleshed out and unique.

Well fuck you for lacking basic reading comprehension. I specifically listed Underrail as an example of a great new game with a unique setting.[/QUOTE]

My apologies, sire.

 

[B0rt]

Hmmm, so then what are the golden-age games all the with great writing again?.** It seems like we're having trouble listing a dozen... not sure if people can even agree on half a dozen.

Betrayal at Krondor was well above average, but all told the writing didn't impress me much as a forgiving kid, let alone as an adult. I remember the various Ultimas far better for the world building than the actual writing, which was mostly adequate. Lone Wolf books are 90% fiction novel, 10% game, so I wouldn't really compare them to CRPGs, they're closer to CYOA books with some very lite RPG elements. Legacy of Kain? I've only played the first one (and it was damn good) but it felt more like Zelda built up w/ some ACRPG elements than a proper CRPG. Arcanum was an absolute freak that compares fairly well to other titles from its time, but would probably get much harsher reviews if released today. I recall that the hardcore CPRG crowd mostly spit on it at release, didn't buy it, and maybe expressed some regret later on. It's troubling that the examples cited in the OP's argument don't really support his thesis all that strongly.

Can someone cite a two year period from PC gaming (esp. CRPG) history that beats out 2015-16? I not arguing that it's impossible to do so, but having been in this mess since the mid-80s I feel that the market has profoundly improved in recent years, very likely (in part) due to forums like this one. But to continue to crow that modern CRPGs are crap, well... compare and contrast the last two years to any in CRPG history and I think the situation is looking pretty good. The big struggle now is a creative one, making good games with small dedicated teams, getting the word out, and then buying the games when they're actually looking good.

Standing on an internet podium and spewing well constructed bile was an effective tactic during yesterday's battles, but it is a largely waste of time and energy today. Except when people are making fun of obviously pretentious stuff like "Undertail" -- gotta hope that delightful brand of contempt always finds a home here, if only for lulz.





** Star Control 2, duh

 

[Roqua]

Hmmm, so then what are the golden-age games all the with great writing again?.** It seems like we're having trouble listing a dozen... not sure if people can even agree on half a dozen.

Betrayal at Krondor was well above average, but all told the writing didn't impress me much as a forgiving kid, let alone as an adult. I remember the various Ultimas far better for the world building than the actual writing, which was mostly adequate. Lone Wolf books are 90% fiction novel, 10% game, so I wouldn't really compare them to CRPGs, they're closer to CYOA books with some very lite RPG elements. Legacy of Kain? I've only played the first one (and it was damn good) but it felt more like Zelda built up w/ some ACRPG elements than a proper CRPG. Arcanum was an absolute freak that compares fairly well to other titles from its time, but would probably get much harsher reviews if released today. I recall that the hardcore CPRG crowd mostly spit on it at release, didn't buy it, and maybe expressed some regret later on. It's troubling that the examples cited in the OP's argument don't really support his thesis all that strongly.

Can someone cite a two year period from PC gaming (esp. CRPG) history that beats out 2015-16? I not arguing that it's impossible to do so, but having been in this mess since the mid-80s I feel that the market has profoundly improved in recent years, very likely (in part) due to forums like this one. But to continue to crow that modern CRPGs are crap, well... compare and contrast the last two years to any in CRPG history and I think the situation is looking pretty good. The big struggle now is a creative one, making good games with small dedicated teams, getting the word out, and then buying the games when they're actually looking good.

Standing on an internet podium and spewing well constructed bile was an effective tactic during yesterday's battles, but it is a largely waste of time and energy today. Except when people are making fun of obviously pretentious stuff like "Undertail" -- gotta hope that delightful brand of contempt always finds a home here, if only for lulz.





** Star Control 2, duh

Old games all had shitty writing, but they knew they were games and aimed to be good at what they were (are). New games, the non crpgs, think they are somehow art. I don't want to play art. I don't want to play a game of Kant. I don't want to play Mona Lisa or Rodin. I want to play a fun game that is more complex than a P&P system and notmore dumbed down than shoots and ladders but with graphics that cost more than of the GDP of all of South America.

You can't play writing. You can't play a setting. The superficial shit is okay when added on top a set of working, fun, complex systems and the focus is on a great game.

I have rose tinted glasses on some games probably not as good as I think they are, but I don't get this obsession with hating new things. AoD, Underrail, and WL2 DC were all instant top 25 crpgs of all time, if not top ten (my top 10 definitely, knocking some old games down the list). The new SRs are way better than the Nintendo and sega ones. People just like to shoot themselves in the foot it seems.

 

[Lilura]

Can someone cite a two year period from PC gaming (esp. CRPG) history that beats out 2015-16?

1998-99?

Fallout 2
Planescape: Torment
Baldur's Gate
System Shock 2
Jagged Alliance 2

Just one of those games is worth more than everything you can cite from your shitty period.

 

[octavius]

Can someone cite a two year period from PC gaming (esp. CRPG) history that beats out 2015-16?

I haven't played any newer CRPGs, but I doubt if 2015-16 is more golden than 1988-89, 92-93 or 98-99.

88-89:
Wasteland
Ultima V
Pool of Radiance
Wizardry 5
Might&Magic 2
The Magic Candle
Curse of the Azure Bonds
Chaos Strikes Back
Dragon Wars
Dark Heart of Uukrul

92-93:
Black Crypt
Ultima Underworld
Treasures of the Savage Frontier
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny
Ultima VII
Dark Queen of Krynn
Darklands
Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen
Wizardry 7
The Legacy: Realm of Terror
Ultima Underworld 2
FRUA
Might and Magic: Darkside of Xeen
Betrayal at Krondor
Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands

 

[Neanderthal]

Hmmm, so then what are the golden-age games all the with great writing again?.** It seems like we're having trouble listing a dozen... not sure if people can even agree on half a dozen.

Betrayal at Krondor was well above average, but all told the writing didn't impress me much as a forgiving kid, let alone as an adult. I remember the various Ultimas far better for the world building than the actual writing, which was mostly adequate. Lone Wolf books are 90% fiction novel, 10% game, so I wouldn't really compare them to CRPGs, they're closer to CYOA books with some very lite RPG elements. Legacy of Kain? I've only played the first one (and it was damn good) but it felt more like Zelda built up w/ some ACRPG elements than a proper CRPG. Arcanum was an absolute freak that compares fairly well to other titles from its time, but would probably get much harsher reviews if released today. I recall that the hardcore CPRG crowd mostly spit on it at release, didn't buy it, and maybe expressed some regret later on. It's troubling that the examples cited in the OP's argument don't really support his thesis all that strongly.

Can someone cite a two year period from PC gaming (esp. CRPG) history that beats out 2015-16? I not arguing that it's impossible to do so, but having been in this mess since the mid-80s I feel that the market has profoundly improved in recent years, very likely (in part) due to forums like this one. But to continue to crow that modern CRPGs are crap, well... compare and contrast the last two years to any in CRPG history and I think the situation is looking pretty good. The big struggle now is a creative one, making good games with small dedicated teams, getting the word out, and then buying the games when they're actually looking good.

Standing on an internet podium and spewing well constructed bile was an effective tactic during yesterday's battles, but it is a largely waste of time and energy today. Except when people are making fun of obviously pretentious stuff like "Undertail" -- gotta hope that delightful brand of contempt always finds a home here, if only for lulz.





** Star Control 2, duh

I mentioned fuck all about writing in me opening post, its about formulaic an uninspired worlds nowadays as compared to yesteryear, starved of interesting gameplay, locations an methods of interaction. Saying that BaK writing is bloody brilliant. As for dumping on Arcanum an saying modern games got it whipped thats bollocks, compare feature list, amazing reactivity an varied gameplay of Arcanum to any modern title an it'll whip their arse handily. An who gis a fuck about reviews?

An me bile int well constructed either.