Decline Worst travesties in the genre?

[Lacrymas]

Who the fuck cares about it?? Only insane people would have expected RPGs to become mainstream fad. The kickstarter craze was never going to do this shit. It was good because it brought us a few good games and maybe a few more are in development like black gayxer. RPGs are niche thing for people with specific kind of thinking and at least some brains in their noggin. It is not something that should become mainstream,such shit will hurt the community,the industry,etc etc.
Tho i only care if the game is a up to codex standards and if i like it. The rest is irrelevant.

Not to become mainstream, but their continued development as AA games to be commercially viable. Which they aren't.

 

[fantadomat]

Who the fuck cares about it?? Only insane people would have expected RPGs to become mainstream fad. The kickstarter craze was never going to do this shit. It was good because it brought us a few good games and maybe a few more are in development like black gayxer. RPGs are niche thing for people with specific kind of thinking and at least some brains in their noggin. It is not something that should become mainstream,such shit will hurt the community,the industry,etc etc.
Tho i only care if the game is a up to codex standards and if i like it. The rest is irrelevant.

Not to become mainstream, but their continued development as AA games to be commercially viable. Which they aren't.

Ahhh ok. PB,Spiders, The dudes with kingmaker,spellforce,vogel,Styx,larian and few others are devs that still develop good RPGs. Don't know what you are smoking mate. Most of those devs are in out of passion and continue doing it if it manages to pay the bill. I don't think that they are all aiming to make millions.

 

[Lacrymas]

We'll see if we'll get a Pathfinder 2. The others aren't in the same category at all, not only are they not from the Kickstarter era (apart from Larian, which I already mentioned) nor AA, I also said indies continue to make good games.

 

[Okagron]

An interesting, serious setting where you can become a supermutant by swimming in a FEV vat

Just because a setting has things that don't match our reality doesn't mean the setting can't be serious.

 

[alyvain]

An interesting, serious setting where you can become a supermutant by swimming in a FEV vat

Just because a setting has things that don't match our reality doesn't mean the setting can't be serious.

Do you mean it takes itself seriously? Nice argument, but I'll still nuke you with an alien blaster

Spoiler

and please don't say that this stuff is random encounter only. I already know this argument

I agree that F2 tends to expand on the more ridiculous ascpects of the setting, but the stuff has always been there. F1 feels much darker indeed, but it's always been good pulp.

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

How could Final Fantasy 7 contribute to the static environments in the IE games, when Baldur's Gate began development nearly 2 years before Final Fantasy 7 came out in the US? And how could it contribute to the use of 3D cutscenes, when the IE games didn't even have those, apart from an intro and a few seconds of establishing shots whenever you entered a new area?

I wrote IE games, not all IE games. Final Fantasy 7 (and it's sequels) set the new standards you had to compete against. The new standards set by the market leader were beautiful prerendered backgrounds and 3d cutsences (by 90's standards), and interactive environments were clearly not needed. Either you match those graphics or you suffer from lost sales, no matter how bizarre or irrational it might seem to expect developers to make games as good looking as those made with ten time the budget. Today I doubt anyone is going to prefer FF7 to BG in terms of visuals, but back than the customers would say otherwise.

This is the most dazzling visual experience to date on any console. Film-quality computer-generated cinematics blend seamlessly with pre-rendered background artwork to create the strikingly realistic world of Final Fantasy VII, both beautiful in its grandeur and terrifying in its detail.

Your competition has amazing 3D cut scenes and you don't? Tough luck. You're gonna lose sales.

Furthermore, what are you comparing the IE games to when you describe their environments as static and lacking in interactivity? The last AD&D RPG released before Baldur's Gate was Dark Sun, where you could bash open doors and attack NPCs. In the IE games you can bash open doors, attack NPCS, lay traps and use skills like pickpocketing and stealth. Where is the decline in interactivity?

IE environment are about as interactive as games from the 80's, maybe early 90's. By the time they came out they were already surpassed. FF showed that environments might as well be prerendered pictures and no one would care. So what pressure did any of these games had to increase the interactivity of the environment? It's clearly not important.
And just imagine a different timeline where XCOM becomes the biggest game of the 90's, played by every kid, don't you think this would encourage RPG devs to create environments where fireballs burn trees and create holes in the ground?
It's all about the impact of sales. Why should ME Andromeda have perfect lip sync and perfect facial animation? Who gives a fuck about it? We didn't have it for 40 years of RPGs and suddenly this is an absolute must. What changed? The answer is that Witcher 3 changed the standard. It's not fair and it makes zero sense from the perspective of those who judge games by their mechanics, but it is what it is. The reason people here complain about voice acting is the same, it became the industry standard and now AA devs are hard pressed to write dialogues that can't be naturally spoken, or make RPGs like Arcanum where the dialogues aren't prewritten. They could do it, but the customers demand they match the standards set by the market leader.

 

[meatface]

Worst travesties implies lasting bad consequences for the genre or the entire gaming industry, not simply bad games.

1) World of Warcraft. It's not a travesty in of itself, but its design pollutes gameplay and itemization even now. It works fine as an MMO, but developers haphazardly transplant features that make no sense outside of it just due to its sheer popularity, thinking it's going to have the same effect in single-player games. It not only has consequences for single-player RPGs, but it effectively killed the MMORPG genre. You might argue the itemization is taken from Diablo 2 instead, but the gameplay isn't from there.

I think there's some truth here. WoW didn't originate all the awful MMO mechanics that have infected so many AAA games, but it sold a genre of game that had "RPG" in its name to a huge audience of casuals and made a fortune in the process. It's pure speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if other developers wanted to emulate WoW's feel to cash in; at the very least, it allowed standards to fall precipitously, as this newfound player base had no appreciation for what made RPGs in the first place.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

So guise, will Swen Vincke shove down the +3% to statistic "enchanted" loot down our throats in BG3?

 

[luj1]

We'll see if we'll get a Pathfinder 2. The others aren't in the same category at all...

While it's true that Kingmaker is better than its contemporaries such as Pillars II, you are making it sound grandiose and like the second coming of Jesus. It's better only because it employs a premade ruleset and a premade campaign. So when you take into account that a gigantic boulder of work was taken off their shoulders - and they still managed to fuck it up by using a bad facebook minigame to facilitate gameplay - you realize Kingmaker is better for about the width of one strand of hair.

 

[Jimmious]

DA2 or DAI, take your pick. I actually dont know why I played Inquisition after 2... I shouldn't have.

 

[fantadomat]

It's better only because it employs a premade ruleset and a premade campaign.

Don't be a faggit mate,the dudes put a lot of work making the game. It is not just lets splash that system here and the game is great. The level design,the encounters,a lot of interesting stories are made by the dev,fuck they even managed to make half your companions interesting. The game have plenty of good/decent things in it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

We'll see if we'll get a Pathfinder 2. The others aren't in the same category at all...

While it's true that Kingmaker is better than its contemporaries such as Pillars II, you are making it sound grandiose and like the second coming of Jesus. It's better only because it employs a premade ruleset and a premade campaign. So when you take into account that a gigantic boulder of work was taken off their shoulders - and they still managed to fuck it up by using a bad facebook minigame to facilitate gameplay - you realize Kingmaker is better for about the width of one strand of hair.

The game deviates heavily from the campaign

 

[luj1]

fantadomat Companions are cringe and shouldn't have been a requirement to play the game. I said Kingmaker is better but not by much. Kingdom Management shits on the whole experience.

 

[samuraigaiden]

TIL every CRPG has travestis one way or another

 

[smaug]

fantadomat Companions are cringe and shouldn't have been a requirement to play the game. I said Kingmaker is better but not by much. Kingdom Management shits on the whole experience.

Codex cannot into unique mechanics and different gameplay.

 

[Black Angel]

fantadomat Companions are cringe and shouldn't have been a requirement to play the game. I said Kingmaker is better but not by much. Kingdom Management shits on the whole experience.

Codex cannot into unique mechanics and different gameplay.

Haven't played Kingmaker, so I wouldn't know how kingdom management affect the whole experience, but

 

[luj1]

Haven't played it, so I wouldn't know how kingdom management affect the whole experience

After Chapter I (which was decent) it becomes a central feature which drives the whole gameplay (story, MQ, etc.). Instead of a traditional quest structure, you have awkward 4X/RPG hybrid gameplay that's based on a series of "time attack" events (which are bugged).

To add to that, it's not a very well made minigame. I played better kingdom sims on Facebook (I genuinely think that).

 

[smaug]

Haven't played it, so I wouldn't know how kingdom management affect the whole experience

After Chapter I (which was decent) it becomes a central feature which drives the whole gameplay (story, MQ, etc.). Instead of a traditional quest structure, you have awkward 4X/RPG hybrid gameplay that's based on a series of "time attack" events (which are bugged).

To add to that, it's not a very well made minigame. I played better kingdom sims on Facebook (I genuinely think that).

The Kingdom management is a hit or miss I guess, however, I think it’s funny that one of the main mechanics of Kingmaker, which separates its from Baldur’s Gate is the most hated.

 

[Lacrymas]

These types of mini-games are usually not well incorporated into the game. They just don't gel well with the normal gameplay. It would've been better had we had only narrative choices regarding our kingdom. A bit like NWN2.

 

[Sigourn]

Morrowind: popularized open world RPGs for the masses, while having a rather bland open world.
Gothic: it's German. Had it been American, maybe open world RPGs of today would have been different.
Renaissance RPGs: failed to improve on the cRPG formula. The crowdfunded cRPGs by major developers missed THE golden opportunity to revitalize the genre. Instead, they failed at their goal, and the most "successful" ones have been casualized in one way or another at the expense of other areas (Deadfire, Original Sin, Wasteland 3).

Reminder that Wasteland 2 made $3 million while ATOM RPG only made $35,000. That's how much Renaissance RPGs failed: so much money from willing backers, so much disappointment. This is something that should never, EVER, be forgotten, and these developers (inXile, Obsidian, Larian) should be constantly reminded for their failure.

 

[fantadomat]

Codex cannot into unique mechanics and different gameplay.

LoL,Swen is still butthurt that people didn't like his sparkling effects in DOS.

 

[fantadomat]

Haven't played it, so I wouldn't know how kingdom management affect the whole experience

After Chapter I (which was decent) it becomes a central feature which drives the whole gameplay (story, MQ, etc.). Instead of a traditional quest structure, you have awkward 4X/RPG hybrid gameplay that's based on a series of "time attack" events (which are bugged).

To add to that, it's not a very well made minigame. I played better kingdom sims on Facebook (I genuinely think that).

Nigga you could just cheat it out and ignore it! Why the fuck you care about that side thing??? I just cheatengined 10000000 building points and fucked off killing monsters and shit.

 

[Lacrymas]

They could've made it better by giving you big decisions to make instead of this building points bullshit, and have time to focus on polish.

 

[luj1]

Nigga you could just cheat it out and ignore it! Why the fuck you care about that side thing??? I just cheatengined 10000000 building points and fucked off killing monsters and shit.

Side thing? It's not a side thing, that's the point my Bulgarian nigger. I signed up for an RPG, not this shit. If I want 4X I'll just go and play Alpha Centauri.

Furthermore, the kingdom quests are bland and poorly written. Take "Ancient Curse" for example. Oh my Lord! I feel an evil curse will strike our kingdom! I don't know when, I don't know how, I don't know why, but it will strike! Quickly my lord, do everything you can to prepare!!! (hint: you can't do anything but wait). And this same shit repeats itself 12 times (!) and that's just the beginning.

It's a very lazy way to automate quests. The next quest is the troll army which is also devoid of any context, depth or explanation, making you feel like playing a Sid Meier game.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

Pillars of Eternity ruined Obsidian's reputation