How to make RPGs better

[Breedbate]

Alright, before I open this up to you lot to chime in your grievances ever so passionately, or strike me down for being a complete fool, I will share how I think RPGs could do better.

Have your main story writer create the world, it's history, important characters, and main quest. Now hire a few other writers, as well as keep your main one on board if you wish, and have each one work within the set theme to work out a few different main quests, to give the hero some variety. Then have even more writers (probably for free, since even a heroin junkie could write this) work on different side-quest lines and mini-quests. Have each writer work on each individual character involved with his/her quest. Check it all with your editors. There's your mother-friggen story content, play and replayability.

Go here, kill that, get that, bring 'em back to me. Well... why don't you kneel down, unzip my fly, and pleasure me? Please, make sure each writer you hire does not plan to make every quest like the one I just described in the first sentence of this badly constructed paragraph.

Now, take a note from The Elder Scrolls, and hire a thousand more writers to give your player every god damn opportunity imaginable.

Now, it's your turn. Please, if you have some mini-rant you'd like to go on about how you think RPGs could be better, feel free to post 'em here, in hope that we shall make some impact on the world of roleplaying games which limit your roles drastically!

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

As well Non-Linearity and Good Narrative are not always compatible entities, you get a stronger plot if you centralize and linearize, I don't ALWAYs care about being able to go anywhere and do everything, I actually hated how in Oblivion you could be an Epic Hero and Sinister Assassin in the same game, I prefer your choices to actually havy consequences.

Besides, when you get a sucky non-linear plot, you get Two Worlds, think about that...

EDIT: Also... The Elderscrolls Series is NOT the Be all end all of RPG's, I know so many of you newbies get a hard on for being able to go on random killing sprees but some of us dislike Generic Fantasy World with Unoriginal, Unconnected Plot and walking for hours from town to town.

The Elder Scrolls does what it does well, Bioware does what they do well, Square could do what they do better, but haven't been lately. Different strokes for different folks, or so they say.

 

[derpa]

As well Non-Linearity and Good Narrative are not always compatible entities, you get a stronger plot if you centralize and linearize, I don't ALWAYs care about being able to go anywhere and do everything, I actually hated how in Oblivion you could be an Epic Hero and Sinister Assassin in the same game, I prefer your choices to actually havy consequences.

Besides, when you get a sucky non-linear plot, you get Two Worlds, think about that...

EDIT: Also... The Elderscrolls Series is NOT the Be all end all of RPG's, I know so many of you newbies get a hard on for being able to go on random killing sprees but some of us dislike Generic Fantasy World with Unoriginal, Unconnected Plot and walking for hours from town to town.

The Elder Scrolls does what it does well, Bioware does what they do well, Square could do what they do better, but haven't been lately. Different strokes for different folks, or so they say.

Indeed about elder scrolls.

Really RPGs need to learn from older RPGs like: Fallout 1 & 2, System Shock 2, Dues Ex, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, KOTOR, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Arcanum, etc.

 

[Ares Tyr]

Indeed. I love Oblivion, but that fact that I can literally murder several dozen guards and still be the game's big hero is extremely confusing. I mean, I have, and do, murder hobos, however after I pay a fine, I can stroll up to a guard and he'll give me an enthusiastic "How may I help you?" line like some retarded McDonalds counter-clerk who doesn't remember the fact that I killed his best friend last week for the fun of it. You'd think they'd grow wary on you.

But its the best out right now, so... I put up with it. I think they should've integrated a little bit of the Fable system into it, and have a reputation surround you when you enter cities. Albeit that could've been done better in Fable, but I think if Oblivion had though to use it, it would've worked and they could've done it better... Ah well.

 

[Breedbate]

As well Non-Linearity and Good Narrative are not always compatible entities, you get a stronger plot if you centralize and linearize, I don't ALWAYs care about being able to go anywhere and do everything, I actually hated how in Oblivion you could be an Epic Hero and Sinister Assassin in the same game, I prefer your choices to actually havy consequences.

This is something that would be nice, in concept, but most likely hard to be player friendly. Of course, it could be wrong, as I've never seen it done before. As for Oblivion, I've never played it but briefly. I know most of my Elder Scrolls experience from Morrowind, and I had that so heavily modded up for realism that it was beautiful. Of course, nobody ever got around to making your choices effect questlines.

(Also note that if you're a GOOD assassin, you wouldn't have gotten seen, but yeah I see where you are going.)

The main motive behind suggesting that RPGs should have a large cast of writers came mainly from my own experiences, writing 'what ifs' and different plots, which happened in the world the author created around me. I've seen other people do it as well (an example being the near hundreds of Star Wars stories and forum roleplays) and really it seems quite cool to have a main author create a world, give it a dash of spice, history, and culture, then allow other writers to be set loose upon it, in order to get quite a few different plots and characters going. After all, each writer is different, and their style would be majorly different from one another (yet add their own little twist to the world, which now that I think about it, may or may not be a good thing pending the writers you hire).

As for linearity, to each their own I suppose.

 

[derpa]

As well Non-Linearity and Good Narrative are not always compatible entities, you get a stronger plot if you centralize and linearize, I don't ALWAYs care about being able to go anywhere and do everything, I actually hated how in Oblivion you could be an Epic Hero and Sinister Assassin in the same game, I prefer your choices to actually havy consequences.

This is something that would be nice, in concept, but most likely hard to be player friendly. Of course, it could be wrong, as I've never seen it done before. As for Oblivion, I've never played it but briefly. I know most of my Elder Scrolls experience from Morrowind, and I had that so heavily modded up for realism that it was beautiful. Of course, nobody ever got around to making your choices effect questlines.

(Also note that if you're a GOOD assassin, you wouldn't have gotten seen, but yeah I see where you are going.)

The main motive behind suggesting that RPGs should have a large cast of writers came mainly from my own experiences, writing 'what ifs' and different plots, which happened in the world the author created around me. I've seen other people do it as well (an example being the near hundreds of Star Wars stories and forum roleplays) and really it seems quite cool to have a main author create a world, give it a dash of spice, history, and culture, then allow other writers to be set loose upon it, in order to get quite a few different plots and characters going. After all, each writer is different, and their style would be majorly different from one another.

As for linearity, to each their own I suppose.

Its been done in RPGs many a time.....just not in recent ones.

 

[Breedbate]

Ah... can you name one or two, so that maybe I can look into 'em? I haven't really found any old RPGs that I enjoyed, then again I never really looked intensively. All the stores that I've glanced into have eyes only for the new stuff.

 

[derpa]

Ah... can you name one or two, so that maybe I can look into 'em? I haven't really found any old RPGs that I enjoyed, then again I never really looked intensively. All the stores that I've glanced into have eyes only for the new stuff.

Check out the list I posted earlier in the thread.

 

[Breedbate]

To me, fixing the RPG genre is easy.

Quit with the fucking 3D graphics, and go back to what worked in the Dos-Win98 eras.

Sprites are fine, why did they get abandoned so quick? Or if you want 3D, it doesn't have to be full-on FPS style, if I wanted an FPS I'd play a mother frackin gods damned FPS! Stone Keep, Final Fantasy 3US/6Ja, Lands of Lore, Albion, hell, even the Nintendo cartridge "Robin Hood: Prince of thieves" were better than the so-called RPGs today. They weren't complex, they were fun.

Its the simple things. In an RPG I want control over my character, but not total control. If I choose the name, have the look pre-set. If I choose the look, have the name pre-set. Don't go the Icewind Dale route where the player supplies the character's every aspect AND backstory, or none of the plot can revolve around the character. Keep the monsters plentiful and varied, Items and Armor MUST be simplified if you can choose your class, contrawise if you're a set "type" of character who can only wield swords and shields, give us a whack of them to choose from... But don't go the Neverwinter route where there's so many weapons with X Y and Z class using some, W, Q and P class using others... It's confusing and pointless.

And for the love of cthulhu, stick to the metric Gold Standard. 100copper=1silver. 100silver=1gold. 100gold=1platinum. 100platinum=100platinum, and be damn thankful you have 100 gods damned platinum, I'm still working towards silver!

Maybe have your character chime in a few words as well... I'm not sure about this, but maybe a decent voice actor would add a bit of 'passion' to your own character.

This less-free style of RPG would be good if you were put in a different role. No, I'm not talking about 'good' or 'evil'... but...

'The Adventures of Wes Craven!'

Wes Craven (you), a lowly apprentice to the chemist of Windspire, has been experimenting in secret behind his masters back. Stumbling upon the formula of an addictive serum called 'Lust', he used it on himself to analyze the effects. The result was catastrophic. Leaving Wes constantly angry, and doubling his physical powers. After killing nearly all of his family but his little brother, who he promptly places in a orphange, Wes embarks on a journey to find a cure for his addiction.

I just realized that sounded a bit like Haze... but, let's not have the player be able to control whenever Wes's addiction takes hold and he needs create more Lust.

Any takers? Anyways, point being I'd rather have my character be a person, perhaps with a problem, that it's your duty as a player to solve (not some prophesied hero or villain, pending very straightforward choices in a dialog box), if not create my own problems in non-linear gameplay.

 

[SilentHunter7]

Linearity isn't always a bad thing, so long as the player isn't feeling railroaded. If I can see a trap coming from 2 acts away, but I have to fall in it to advance the plot, the game needs to go back to development because it's not finished yet.

(This also applies to arbitrary broken bridges, and quests that can only be activated by talking to a very specific person or persons. A player should feel like he's playing the game, not the other way around.)

Oh, and toss the fetch quests, too. If I wanted to journey to Mount McGuffin to get the stone of no real significance, I'd play an MMO.

 

[poleboy]

The sad truth is that consumers of games in general do not want RPG's that differ much from the typical formular used today. Look at some of the examples of excellent games tossed out in this thread (not that I disagree): Torment, Bloodlines, Arcanum, Fallout... most of them were published by Black Isle and Troika, studios that struggled throughout most of their existence and eventually had to close because they didn't get with the Diablo/MMO program. I'm sure there were other factors involved as well, but their fates seems suspiciously similar, although Troika was generally just cursed with bad luck from the start.

The people buying the majority of RPG's today want the simplicity and gloss of Bioware's RPG's. AS long as they get a sword and a princess to save and both are shiny enough, they're content. We're a dying breed.

 

[090907]

I miss icewind dale and baldur's gate. I remember killing days on them, truly great games.

 

[curlycrouton]

Try Wurm Online if you want to be part of an interactive world.
It's free to play, and you shape the world around you, e.g. building great statues for everyone to see or build ships to go exploring or any number of things.

 

[090907]

I miss icewind dale and baldur's gate. I remember killing days on them, truly great games.

 

[shatnershaman]

Get decent VO (Bethesda, yous got some explaining to do.)

 

[Reaperman Wompa]

Ability to buy everything, go to war (and almost win by yourself) stuff they did with Fable 2 and the ability to design your own weapons.