Open Call for Reviews

[MRY]

nameless, generic clone soldiers alongside the heroes. That's a defining "strategy game" aspect, and where I draw the line.

Geneforge? Wizardry 4?

[EDIT: Diablo? NWN?]

 

[Mastermind]

I remember somewhat enjoying the WBC games (when I was writing some promotional fan-fic schlock for a Warlords game, I played through the whole Warlords series), but they always felt like RTSs with some RPG elements and TBS elements thrown in. I've had many a debate on how to define RPGs, but my general approach is the Glenn Beck (!!!) theory that you come up with a list of core values and say, "If you have X/Y of these, it's an RPG." WBC has some of those core values (as you note), but it doesn't have a continuous map (it uses separate stages), you can't meaningfully return to those stages, it doesn't have non-combat ways to interact with the world, and it doesn't have NPCs to talk to. (Though maybe it had some of these; it's been like 15 years since I played it.) I think it's just missing too many core features to be called an RPG.

It has NPCs to talk to, though the conversation system is extremely simplistic (I'm told they fixed that in a stand-alone expansion but I haven't played it). It has non-combat ways to interact with the world (quests, resource gathering victory conditions, though the latter usually involves fighting anyway), though the ultimate goal is usually a combat related one. But that's true of most RPGs. The only thing genuinely missing from the list you mentioned is a continuous map, but I don't think that's a core RPG value, plenty of RPGs have discrete maps (sometimes randomly generated, like in roguelikes).

 

[felipepepe]

nameless, generic clone soldiers alongside the heroes. That's a defining "strategy game" aspect, and where I draw the line.

Geneforge? Wizardry 4?

[EDIT: Diablo? NWN?]

I think we can agree that there's a difference between summoning a few creatures or hiring a single bodyguard from building a barrack and training 20 archers and 10 knights.

 

[Mastermind]

nameless, generic clone soldiers alongside the heroes. That's a defining "strategy game" aspect, and where I draw the line.

Geneforge? Wizardry 4?

[EDIT: Diablo? NWN?]

Baldur's gate, Elder scrolls, and just about every RPG with summons in it.

 

[Mastermind]

nameless, generic clone soldiers alongside the heroes. That's a defining "strategy game" aspect, and where I draw the line.

Geneforge? Wizardry 4?

[EDIT: Diablo? NWN?]

I think we can agree that there's a difference between summoning a few creatures or hiring a single bodyguard from building a barrack and training 20 archers and 10 knights.

Having strategy game elements does not make it any less of an RPG. Especially when the experience/cost (and with some skills, health and resistance) of the troops you're building are linked to your character's skills.

Also, in Morrowind I once summoned up a massive (as in, dozens) undead army and attacked ald ruhn with it just for the hell of it. The game did not explicitly support me being a general but it sure as fuck didn't detract from it being an RPG that I could be one. If it let me train up troops and attack cities with it it would expand role playing options. It's nonsensical to say you can't be an army commander in an RPG. Not every RPG has to feature an independent contractor as the protagonist.

 

[MRY]

I think we can agree that there's a difference between summoning a few creatures or hiring a single bodyguard from building a barrack and training 20 archers and 10 knights.

Although you do have things like the stronghold in NWN2 or BG2. It's always hard to pin things down exactly, especially if (like me) you have a lousy memory for details (as Mastermind's list of WBC features reveals). Still, notwithstanding my senility, I'm relatively certain that WBC feels like an RTS with RPG elements, not an RPG with RTS elements, just like QFG feels like an adventure game with RPG elements and PS:T feels like an RPG with adventure game elements. It seems reasonable to leave WBC out, since you have to draw the line somewhere.

 

[Mastermind]

In WBC the strategy element depends entirely on your character build. Some builds don't need a base at all, others work well with or without one, others are based entirely on improving your army and building/upgrading. My first campaign run was with a druid who summoned a pack of high xp fire elementals and destroyed everything with them, no base building required.

 

[MRY]

My imperfect recollection is that, so played, WBC felt very shallow and undeveloped, which would not be the case with an RPG. But it's silly for me to try to debate this with someone who knows the game much better than I do, so I'll bow out.

 

[felipepepe]

Goddamit, I'm not "leaving it out", I'm moving to a separate article. Instead of looking like the left page, it will (probably) look like the right one:

 

[MRY]

Oh. I wandered in mid-stream and missed that key detail.

 

[J_C]

nameless, generic clone soldiers alongside the heroes. That's a defining "strategy game" aspect, and where I draw the line.

Geneforge? Wizardry 4?

[EDIT: Diablo? NWN?]

Baldur's gate, Elder scrolls, and just about every RPG with summons in it.

Now that is borderline retarded. Summoning a creature is not like using an army in strategy games FFS!

 

[Mastermind]

nameless, generic clone soldiers alongside the heroes. That's a defining "strategy game" aspect, and where I draw the line.

Geneforge? Wizardry 4?

[EDIT: Diablo? NWN?]

Baldur's gate, Elder scrolls, and just about every RPG with summons in it.

Now that is borderline retarded. Summoning a creature is not like using an army in strategy games FFS!

It's nameless generic clone soldiers alongside the heroes.

 

[tuluse]

No, the characters (or rather, at least one of the characters) in a party based RPG are the player. The player isn't some disconnected commander giving orders from a remote location. Jagged Alliance identifies the player as a commander, just like Starcraft does. Meanwhile nobody in Daggerfall or Baldur's Gate or Fallout (or Warlords Battlecry for that matter) hires a disconnected voice to order them around.

Doesn't that describe IWD? I mean don't IE games even have a simple morale system where characters will run away ignoring your orders?

 

[Mastermind]

No, the characters (or rather, at least one of the characters) in a party based RPG are the player. The player isn't some disconnected commander giving orders from a remote location. Jagged Alliance identifies the player as a commander, just like Starcraft does. Meanwhile nobody in Daggerfall or Baldur's Gate or Fallout (or Warlords Battlecry for that matter) hires a disconnected voice to order them around.

Doesn't that describe IWD? I mean don't IE games even have a simple morale system where characters will run away ignoring your orders?

They run away as a result of status effects (at least in BG). That's not really what I'm talking about though. You playing as the characters does not mean your characters can't lose control of themselves through spells, morale failure or whatever else.

 

[tuluse]

They run away as a result of status effects (at least in BG). That's not really what I'm talking about though. You playing as the characters does not mean your characters can't lose control of themselves through spells, morale failure or whatever else.

What is the actual difference between "playing as the characters" in IWD and "issuing commands" in JA2?

 

[Mastermind]

They run away as a result of status effects (at least in BG). That's not really what I'm talking about though. You playing as the characters does not mean your characters can't lose control of themselves through spells, morale failure or whatever else.

What is the actual difference between "playing as the characters" in IWD and "issuing commands" in JA2?

I never said anything about JA2 (which has an actual playable protagonist).

 

[tuluse]

I never said anything about JA2 (which has an actual playable protagonist).

Well it makes some sense to cover JA1 then just to show progression.

 

[Haba]

Uh so I kinda wrote the review for DK3 like months ago and forgot about the whole thing. felipepepe?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I'm still updating my Summoner review.

 

[norolim]

I'm still waiting for the acceptance of my IWD2 review

 

[felipepepe]

Truth is, I had a minor setback last week. My HD went kaput, and my last backup of the book was almost a month old... so I've spent the 10 days re-doing A LOT of work.



Should get back to speed this week, then back to editing & layouting reviews.

 

[J_C]

Truth is, I had a minor setback last week. My HD went kaput, and my last backup of the book was almost a month old... so I've spent the 10 days re-doing A LOT of work.



Should get back to speed this week, then back to editing & layouting reviews.

Jesus christ Felipe, keep a backup version somewhere.

 

[Alchemist]

Wow sorry to hear about the data loss. It always sucks re-doing work. I recommend setting some kind of continuous automatic backup, either cloud-based or on a separate drive / computer.

edit: Crashplan is what I use.

 

[tuluse]

Truth is, I had a minor setback last week. My HD went kaput, and my last backup of the book was almost a month old... so I've spent the 10 days re-doing A LOT of work.



Should get back to speed this week, then back to editing & layouting reviews.

Damn bro that sucks.

There are a number of free cloud backup programs. I like dropbox myself.

 

[felipepepe]

I've been backuping regularly each month, so the loss wasn't that big... bit I should change to a bi-weekly backup from now on.