Did MMOs ruin it for me?

[General_Potatoes]

They may have. You should be grateful though. To me, MMOs are getting worse and the people who are playing them are getting more annoying. But hey.... That's just me.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

Haha. I really do appreciate what these modern western RPGs are bringing to the table, but for some reason I just can't seem to get into them. Maybe I am more of a social gamer. I mainly play Dark Age of Camelot only when I have actual personal friends online and we're playing over ventrilo, double or triple teaming some dirty Albs in Thidranki Faste or the New Frontiers.

Again, not to bash, bashing isn't the point of this discussion...but I really feel when people say "you're running around with 50 other people doing the same thing and it makes you unimportant" is a totally invalid point. You can't pretend you're the only person on Earth who's ever played Oblivion of Dragon Age. People who invest a lot of time in these games are chasing the best gear and getting their character the best stats just like in any RPG, single player or multiplayer (Don't lie, you've all looked up walkthroughs for getting "Wembly's Shield of Skullf@cking").

Maybe it's just your genre.

This just in: SOME PEOPLE LIKE SPORTS GAMES!

I know, right? It's effing weird. But it's their genre that they just enjoy. Maybe you just need something to work for in a social environment or you get bored too easily, fine sir. Hope this helps?

 

[Shymer]

It sounds like during your early life as a gamer - you were looking for something that the games had the potential to deliver, but that MMOs finally gave you. Perhaps then it's not a surprise when you go back to the single player experience and find them lacking. You have changed in the intervening time, or the games you remember from your youth weren't actually scratching your itch.

I went the other way. I played (and wrote) a lot of early multiplayer games, MUDs, MUSHes and kept going back to single player games. I recently bought an XBOX 360 to play with friends online. I don't mind multiplayer games like Battlefield BC2, or Halo Reach, but I find the experience is not as compelling as playing a single player game like Dragon Age: Origins, or Mass Effect.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

Are you really trying to say J-rpgs are any different? I cant help but laugh every time i see a J-rpg because they take themselves quite seriously, yet 9/10 times its some androgynous teen boy with a 10ft long sword and hair as big to match.

You cant say as fact that all W-rpgs are bad, because that is your opinion, just how i cant say J-rpgs are actually bad, they just arent the type of games i want to play.

Thank ye. For as much as I love JRPGs, they do have those cliche's to the point developers of those games have a brush on photoshop that just creates those characters.

What I do like about WRPGs like Fallout and Oblivion, they joke about themselves. They know they aren't the worlds next big epic, so they take the piss out of themselves every now and then and have fun with their games. I mean, Little Lamp Light in Fallout 3 could not be taken seriously be anyone. At all.

Forgive me, Im tired and had a stressful night
/not thinking properly

Miss, you are forgiven. Just try not to be as hasty in the future.

 

[Friendshipandmagic]

You got it backwards. Mass Effect for instance was an action game with good writing, very little "actual role playing" to be found there. The newest dragon age game is the same way. You pick paragon or renegade and get what boils down to one of 2 outcomes. Its a sad direction, but thats how it looks. It doesn't feel like your role playing in a western RPG, it feels like you are playing one of 2 different versions of the developers character, sometimes 3.

Honestly, I have yet to see any western game come close to the level of role playing in any of the Persona games. You had to build friendships up over time, got to really get to know a good number of characters who behaved like actual human beings, had to make real choices that could really impact gameplay.

I mean you could screw up and say or do the wrong thing to make someone mad at you even though you had the best of intentions at the time they just took it the wrong way, you know like human relationships are? In dragon age 2 the correct option for flirting with NPCs HAD HEART LABELS ON THEM. That isn't role playing, thats just wrong.

Okay, I knew this was going to be brought up, so I'll say it now: If this debate is to exist, you need to exclude the Persona franchise. The recent additions are beautiful games, but in the grand scheme of JRPGs, they are the only ones of their kind. The Final Fantasy, Tales of, Xeno, Star Ocean, Kingdom Hearts, and other commonly known JRPGs thrive off of cutscenes, a forced narrative, and over-dramatized character developments. These games rarely have any role playing outside of stats. And in FF you don't even have control over that anymore. Don't get me wrong, I fucking love JRPGs, even FFXIII.

Be it made, I did say the sense of role-playing. That means, even if my chocies really amount to diddly, it feels like I have choices. I can be a jerk if someone is pissing me off, I can be pleasant if I feel like killing them with kindness, I can pull a gun on them if I will it.

And that's only Mass Effect. In Fallout, you can control so much with just little choices. I can use one of the earliest moments as a great example:

You're on the lamb in your own home. After being forced out of bed by the girl next-door due to her dad wanting you dead for unknown reasons, you walk by an open door. Through the space, you see the girl you grew up with being interrogated by the man who wants you dead. You can A. Walk past. It's still her father and she'd never forgive you. B. Kill him. He's become corrupt and you pray she'll understand.

That's just the premise and neither of those choices are really morally wrong. On one side, you feel you freed everyone you know at that time, but you took justice into your own hands. On the other side, you let your friend be beaten, but you didn't kill anyone and let everything play out as intended in hopes things are fixed and no one has to die. Both of these choices are offered in the best way: Not in a dialogue menu.

There is one more example I have, and I'll keep it brief: The Witcher 2. I admit, I haven't played it, so bear with me if I'm incorrect. From what I've read in review, the choices in the first act can drastically alter everything in the second and a little of the third acts. From characters, to set pieces. If that doesn't set up a sense of feeling as if you are truly playing the role in the world, I do not know what does. Wait, I got it, they instilled permanent death in the insane difficulty. Tremendous.

Oh I agree with your fallout example, Bethesda makes great games for that kind of thing. There are even more choices than the ones you listed too, I keep finding new ways to approach that. I'm playing as good a character as I can and I just love that I have the freedom to say...wipe out the slaver town of paradise falls if I want to. Just to make my wasteland a better place, I see what I consider a stain on humanity and I can walk in and kill every slaver and free the remaining slaves. It might not change a whole lot, but I can do it. I hear good things about New Vegas, like what factions and quests you did and how you did them can shape they way history unfolds at the end. Those are choices.

Both of these choices are offered in the best way: Not in a dialogue menu.

I wanted to make sure to express how much I agree with this here as well. Thats my entire problem with Bioware games right now. All these "world changing choices" amount to little more than "pick the red text or the blue text" in the dialogue menus. I just find it really off-putting, personally.

Renegade, paragon, sarcastic guy, you pick one of the developers characters and thats all. It honestly feels sometimes like I may as well not have had the choice in the first place. If thats true, I don't see much of an upgrade from JRPGs right now. I could have just as little effective choice playing say, Tales of Vesperia, Final Fantasy Tactics and still be getting a great story with interesting characters.

Thats how I feel anyway. I'd rather just not pretend to be playing a role playing game and get back to the liner narrative driven games I do like. It all comes down to taste, but every time I see "Bioware makes the best RPGs evar!" I just want to cry. It seems like I'm harping on them and not WRPGs in general, I don't know. :/

Wish I was better at explaining this.

 

[Arafiro]

I found a similar thing with Fable 2, as I was playing WoW at the time the it all seemed rather similar.
I can still enjoy singleplayer games these days, but I always kind of hope for some multiplayer/coop options so that I can play them through with someone else too.

 

[Fiend13]

Be it made, I did say the sense of role-playing. That means, even if my chocies really amount to diddly, it feels like I have choices.

Choice is nosynonym for rholeplay. The genre focusing on choice is sandbox. Actual rholeplay on the other hand is very much defined by the constraints your character is given both story and gameplay wise. The Final Fanatasy series are perfectly fine RPG's but you have no choice about anything other than which shinys you like to wear.
Choice is very new to the RPG genre and it is an entirely western culture based concept, namely that of the importance/value of the individual. Former games forced to player into an observer- like where he/she could experience but not influence the story. The main benefit of this design is that the characters are well defined and believable.
Adding choice makes everything way more complex and while it can add depth as well as replay value it holds the danger of destroying the immersion and the authenticity of the whole world.

It also can create the illusion of choice which is in this case a terrible mechanic as is it is not used for narrative or philosophical purposes.
Best example of this is Mass Effect 2(don't get me wrong i love this game).
Of the countless choices you can make there is none that actually matters in regard of the main storyline and here is why:
To guarantee a save is still 'winnable' in the final part of the series all important plotpoints have to be forced on the player in order to make it happen. You basically can influence how something happens but never what. In the worst case scenario some of your choices can actually contradict the outcome.

As shown this mechanic is really hard to use and can ruin games much more often than improve them. You have to write ten good storys instead of one to make it work and considering the deadlines for such projects that is almost impossible (i hear you say 'but Fallout did that almost perfectly' to which i would respond 'yes it was buggy as hell to compensate for that')

 

[Cridhe]

I hate how seriously games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age take themselves most of the time.

Are you really trying to say J-rpgs are any different? I cant help but laugh every time i see a J-rpg because they take themselves quite seriously, yet 9/10 times its some androgynous teen boy with a 10ft long sword and hair as big to match.

You cant say as fact that all W-rpgs are bad, because that is your opinion, just how i cant say J-rpgs are actually bad, they just arent the type of games i want to play.

I recently purchased my first console in the last 6 years, an XBox 360 to experience all the rantings and ravings of games like Dragon Age: Origins and Elder Scrolls IV.

Im not trying to start a flame war here but im going to say that its an almost undeniable truth, most W-rpgs are better on the PC. From the graphics to the interface to the actual way you control your character, the PC is better in almost every way. Especially the console version of Dragon Age with the horrible radial wheel, i cant actually get across to you how much better the experiance is on the PC

I'll disagree as the experience of being slumped over a keyboard all day is so completely unattractive.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

I'll disagree as the experience of being slumped over a keyboard all day is so completely unattractive.

I do no slumping, but anyway i can understand that while playing games some people might want to just lie back and relax, but that doesnt actually refute any of my points.

I hate how seriously games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age take themselves most of the time.

Are you really trying to say J-rpgs are any different? I cant help but laugh every time i see a J-rpg because they take themselves quite seriously, yet 9/10 times its some androgynous teen boy with a 10ft long sword and hair as big to match

Opnionated arent we?
Oh and Stereotyping.
Love that so much.
Yup every JRPG has a teen boy with a spikey hair cut and a giant sword

hmmm i guess Xenosaga and FFXII werent JRPGs then
OK well Vaan was a teenaged male but I dont remember him having a giant sword.

One of them is supposed to be male?! Well you proved my other point.

I know not everyone carries a 10ft long sword, i was using hyperbole to make a point...

Friendshipandmagic was saying that all W-rpgs were bad and they take themselves too seriously, i was merely pointing out that W-rpgs being bad was his/her opinion and not fact and that J-rpgs take themselves seriously dispite typically having character designs which cant be taken seriously at all. I then went on to say, that doesnt make them bad, it just makes the point Friendshipandmagic was trying to make moot.

 

[Friendshipandmagic]

I hate how seriously games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age take themselves most of the time.

Are you really trying to say J-rpgs are any different? I cant help but laugh every time i see a J-rpg because they take themselves quite seriously, yet 9/10 times its some androgynous teen boy with a 10ft long sword and hair as big to match.

You cant say as fact that all W-rpgs are bad, because that is your opinion, just how i cant say J-rpgs are actually bad, they just arent the type of games i want to play.

I wasn't saying that all WRPGs are bad, but if you read past the first sentence you might have guessed that. If you just want to take one sentence out of context to avoid any actual discussion, you accomplished that much.

Since I never claimed my opinion to be anything more than my opinion, you are essentially barking at nothing.

 

[Cridhe]

I'll disagree as the experience of being slumped over a keyboard all day is so completely unattractive.

I do no slumping, but anyway i can understand that while playing games some people might want to just lie back and relax, but that doesnt actually refute any of my points.

I hate how seriously games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age take themselves most of the time.

Are you really trying to say J-rpgs are any different? I cant help but laugh every time i see a J-rpg because they take themselves quite seriously, yet 9/10 times its some androgynous teen boy with a 10ft long sword and hair as big to match

Opnionated arent we?
Oh and Stereotyping.
Love that so much.
Yup every JRPG has a teen boy with a spikey hair cut and a giant sword

hmmm i guess Xenosaga and FFXII werent JRPGs then
OK well Vaan was a teenaged male but I dont remember him having a giant sword.

One of them is supposed to be male?! Well you proved my other point.

I know not everyone carries a 10ft long sword, i was using hyperbole to make a point...

Friendshipandmagic was saying that all W-rpgs were bad and they take themselves too seriously, i was merely pointing out that W-rpgs being bad was his/her opinion and not fact and that J-rpgs take themselves seriously dispite typically having character designs which cant be taken seriously at all. I then went on to say, that doesnt make them bad, it just makes the point Friendshipandmagic was trying to make moot.

Vaan is from Final Fantasy 12, another game I someday intend to try out. The picture (all female) is from Xenosaga. I played the crap out of Xenogears, Xenosaga Ep 1 was pretty good. Never got around to the other two though.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

Oh I agree with your fallout example, Bethesda makes great games for that kind of thing. There are even more choices than the ones you listed too, I keep finding new ways to approach that. I'm playing as good a character as I can and I just love that I have the freedom to say...wipe out the slaver town of paradise falls if I want to. Just to make my wasteland a better place, I see what I consider a stain on humanity and I can walk in and kill every slaver and free the remaining slaves. It might not change a whole lot, but I can do it. I hear good things about New Vegas, like what factions and quests you did and how you did them can shape they way history unfolds at the end. Those are choices.

Both of these choices are offered in the best way: Not in a dialogue menu.

I wanted to make sure to express how much I agree with this here as well. Thats my entire problem with Bioware games right now. All these "world changing choices" amount to little more than "pick the red text or the blue text" in the dialogue menus. I just find it really off-putting, personally.

Renegade, paragon, sarcastic guy, you pick one of the developers characters and thats all. It honestly feels sometimes like I may as well not have had the choice in the first place. If thats true, I don't see much of an upgrade from JRPGs right now. I could have just as little effective choice playing say, Tales of Vesperia, Final Fantasy Tactics and still be getting a great story with interesting characters.

Thats how I feel anyway. I'd rather just not pretend to be playing a role playing game and get back to the liner narrative driven games I do like. It all comes down to taste, but every time I see "Bioware makes the best RPGs evar!" I just want to cry. It seems like I'm harping on them and not WRPGs in general, I don't know. :/

Wish I was better at explaining this.

Glad we agree that WRPGs aren't all shit

I do admit, the plot of a linear game will always surpass those of games with a non-linear plot. This is due to the fact that sandbox games can't spend a lot of time on over-arching narrative because of how many outcomes they're forced to make. If a character is expendable, he can't betray the player later, y'know?

Though you may disagree, that is where I where I believe Bioware excels with the MAss Effect series. This is the one series where I was able to choose to let a sentient race go down fighting or brain wash them. Sadly, it was in a dialogue menu and very direct rather than the beloved and subtle examples from Fallout 3. Still, they have massive choices that effect over-arching narrative without ruining it. It truly becomes your narrative and when it all combines into one finished story that all pends on your choices, I think it'll be an epic I'll remember for years.

It's true that the characters feel cut-out if you choose the same choice over and over, but I have more enjoyment thinking how I'd respond, or what I'd do in the situation. While the role-playing nature seems minimal, if it all ties together in the third game, won't it seem to go from little to no effect (as in the seemingly useless Rachni choice or the politics choice) to a fantastic role-playing experience?

Now for Dragon Age... I'm not going there. That game is awful.

 

[Seraj]

As I cannot be arsed to read through the wall of text people have been writing here, i'll reply directly to the OP.

I've been playing MMO's since I was 9 (mainly one) and I found I had no time for other games , including "RPG's" or whatever the hell you want to label them.

When I did, I really didn't catch on. Jumping from one genre you've been in all your life to another and expecting to enjoy it, is like a fish coming onto land and expecting to walk.

You have to do it in steps really, whatever you enjoy in MMO's, look for in other games. I enjoyed the plot line and achievements in the MMO I played, these aren't that hard to find in other games.

Look for highly recommended games, I mean the ones you picked seem a little on the iffy side, people seem to either LOVE them, or hate them.

Try something like Half-life series, portal(more puzzle)/portal 2(more story). Or any other game which happens to have very little haters. (Those are examples, dont flame :3)

RPG's should definitely not be the first games you play after leaving MMO's that's a little hardcore for someone who was an MMO purist


sounds strange seeing as MMO's are basically RPG's with people (in some cases)

But trust me, its well worth it, although more expensive


OH, and a personal recommendation would be psychonauts, a strange cheap game, not that awesome graphically, but its one of those games which I just cannot forget


Captcha: Polish tshona... sounds tasty.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

I hate how seriously games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age take themselves most of the time.

Are you really trying to say J-rpgs are any different? I cant help but laugh every time i see a J-rpg because they take themselves quite seriously, yet 9/10 times its some androgynous teen boy with a 10ft long sword and hair as big to match.

You cant say as fact that all W-rpgs are bad, because that is your opinion, just how i cant say J-rpgs are actually bad, they just arent the type of games i want to play.

I wasn't saying that all WRPGs are bad, but if you read past the first sentence you might have guessed that. If you just want to take one sentence out of context to avoid any actual discussion, you accomplished that much.

I didnt take anything out of context, you said western rpgs arent good or at least not as good as everyone says, then i quoted the sentance where you said you hate games that take themselves too seriously. Whats out of context there?

If anything you're taking what im saying out of context by focusing on the admittedly unfairly strong declaration that you think all Wrpgs are bad, and nothing else.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

Be it made, I did say the sense of role-playing. That means, even if my chocies really amount to diddly, it feels like I have choices.

Choice is nosynonym for rholeplay. The genre focusing on choice is sandbox. Actual rholeplay on the other hand is very much defined by the constraints your character is given both story and gameplay wise. The Final Fanatasy series are perfectly fine RPG's but you have no choice about anything other than which shinys you like to wear.
Choice is very new to the RPG genre and it is an entirely western culture based concept, namely that of the importance/value of the individual. Former games forced to player into an observer- like where he/she could experience but not influence the story. The main benefit of this design is that the characters are well defined and believable.
Adding choice makes everything way more complex and while it can add depth as well as replay value it holds the danger of destroying the immersion and the authenticity of the whole world.

It also can create the illusion of choice which is in this case a terrible mechanic as is it is not used for narrative or philosophical purposes.
Best example of this is Mass Effect 2(don't get me wrong i love this game).
Of the countless choices you can make there is none that actually matters in regard of the main storyline and here is why:
To guarantee a save is still 'winnable' in the final part of the series all important plotpoints have to be forced on the player in order to make it happen. You basically can influence how something happens but never what. In the worst case scenario some of your choices can actually contradict the outcome.

As shown this mechanic is really hard to use and can ruin games much more often than improve them. You have to write ten good storys instead of one to make it work and considering the deadlines for such projects that is almost impossible (i hear you say 'but Fallout did that almost perfectly' to which i would respond 'yes it was buggy as hell to compensate for that')

First point, Fallout 3 got fixed... eventually....

Second, when using the word role-play, remember what it means: to play a role.

Remember, the term derives from old dice games and board games where players would gather name and create a character and be forced to make decisions while remember what they are capable of via stats.

In video games, our first RPG's were text-adventures. None of these involved stats, yet ZORK is still considered a great retro RPG and all it was offer choices.

Final Fantasy took the concept of the dice games and made it into a video game with a real narrative. Down the line, narrative took the place of role-playing where, in JRPGs, it means to play the role of the characters they are giving you. No choices, no involvment, you're just guiding them.

I love JRPGs, remember. However, I also know where they fall short. Personally, I think Final Fantasy needs to change it's genre to Turn-Based Adventure. This would also fit the bill for Xenosaga.

I hate how seriously games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age take themselves most of the time.

Are you really trying to say J-rpgs are any different? I cant help but laugh every time i see a J-rpg because they take themselves quite seriously, yet 9/10 times its some androgynous teen boy with a 10ft long sword and hair as big to match

Opnionated arent we?
Oh and Stereotyping.
Love that so much.
Yup every JRPG has a teen boy with a spikey hair cut and a giant sword

hmmm i guess Xenosaga and FFXII werent JRPGs then
OK well Vaan was a teenaged male but I dont remember him having a giant sword.

Vaan could have a big sword, if chosen to equip it.

Also, crazy haired main teenage boy with a mission? Sorry, but that fits Rubedo. I've played all three Xenosaga and have had great discussions how they represent gnosticism, but it even fits into the stereotypes a tad.

 

[00slash00]

Vaan is from Final Fantasy 12, another game I someday intend to try out.

i urge you to rethink that decision. ff12 was a trainwreck. the one liners from balthier were the only good thing about that game. the only reason i finished it was because my friend bet me that i wouldnt, because it was so bad. playing through that whole game made me die a little inside

 

[Vrach]

KOTOR games are old and the gameplay in them's pretty terrible, it's the story that makes them great. I don't see how MMOs could ruin your taste for non-MMOs though, the latter are generally higher quality as it's a smaller and more condensed experience. You could just not be into the games you listed in particular.