Serious frustratingly lack of ' RPG persistent world' games.

[Mcface]

The Elder Scrolls is probably the best i've played to date.

you must not play many rpgs then.

he wanted open world and persistent.
nothing really compares to the quality, and the amount you can do.

EDIT: that doesn't look like an 8 bit piece of shit, and is older than I am.

TES =/= persistent. sure people are moving but its still FIXED. people do the same shit every day and the main quest FREEZES. if it WAS persistent than oblivion gates would have opened regardless of you visiting Kvatch or not. TES =/= persistent in any sense of the word. it may be open world but NOT persistent. you also fail to understand the scope of RPGs. Oblivion is just a drop in the bucket in quality expansive RPG games.

you call diablo, baldurs gate, plane scape torment, the old TES games, and fallout crap? yet you like bethesda's new FPS games? no surprise there. i am amazed you like rpgs at all and would even walk away from halo.

I like how you assume im talking about Oblivion when there are 5 other games in TES series.
Diablo is a overrated hack and slash, it was back then and it is now. The original fallouts also are awful. Any old turn based game is. It has nothing to do with skill of the player.

But yeah, no surprise here, another "LOL OLD GAYMES ARE BETR JUST BCUZ THEY R OLD" yes they may have been good 10 years ago. These days, no.

I don't consider this smudge looking pixel attack that smudge looking pixel with a sword that looks like a crudely penis with a 56% chance of missing fun. You may, but ill stick to shit that doesn't suck.

you say you don't like games with crappy graphics when you reference the NON-recent TES games? and call them "good"? and i thought i was a hypocrite.

Morrowind looks fine. At least I can tell what they are.
I play games as old as Vampire: bloodlines. It doesn't have to have GOOD graphics but a top down birds eye view of a small white pixel isn't exactly fun for me. Nor can I see how it's fun for anyone.

Fallout 2s first 10 hours in a nutshell.
"swing, miss. swing, miss. swing, miss. swing, hit, no damage done. swing, 5 damage done"
THRILLING!

 

[Omega Pirate]

Majora's Mask in a persistent world, but for a 3 day time span. It's a unique setting for sure. It being one of my favorite games I will also recommend it.

 

[Chal]

The Elder Scrolls is probably the best i've played to date.

you must not play many rpgs then.

he wanted open world and persistent.
nothing really compares to the quality, and the amount you can do.

EDIT: that doesn't look like an 8 bit piece of shit, and is older than I am.

TES =/= persistent. sure people are moving but its still FIXED. people do the same shit every day and the main quest FREEZES. if it WAS persistent than oblivion gates would have opened regardless of you visiting Kvatch or not. TES =/= persistent in any sense of the word. it may be open world but NOT persistent. you also fail to understand the scope of RPGs. Oblivion is just a drop in the bucket in quality expansive RPG games.

you call diablo, baldurs gate, plane scape torment, the old TES games, and fallout crap? yet you like bethesda's new FPS games? no surprise there. i am amazed you like rpgs at all and would even walk away from halo.

I like how you assume im talking about Oblivion when there are 5 other games in TES series.
Diablo is a overrated hack and slash, it was back then and it is now. The original fallouts also are awful. Any old turn based game is. It has nothing to do with skill of the player.

But yeah, no surprise here, another "LOL OLD GAYMES ARE BETR JUST BCUZ THEY R OLD" yes they may have been good 10 years ago. These days, no.

I don't consider this smudge looking pixel attack that smudge looking pixel with a sword that looks like a crudely penis with a 56% chance of missing fun. You may, but ill stick to shit that doesn't suck.

you say you don't like games with crappy graphics when you reference the NON-recent TES games? and call them "good"? and i thought i was a hypocrite.

Morrowind looks fine. At least I can tell what they are.
I play games as old as Vampire: bloodlines. It doesn't have to have GOOD graphics but a top down birds eye view of a small white pixel isn't exactly fun for me. Nor can I see how it's fun for anyone.

Fallout 2s first 10 hours in a nutshell.
"swing, miss. swing, miss. swing, miss. swing, hit, no damage done. swing, 5 damage done"
THRILLING!

Peace, folks. Ultratwinkie, accept that he has a different opinion and move one. As someone who has played KoTOR, Dwarf Fortress, Nethack, both Diablos, NWN2, and every incarnation of TES, Morrowind is my absolute favorite game. Some of us prefer exploring worlds to exploring dialog trees and stats. RPGs have moved on, and personally I think it's for the better.

If you don't, play the older titles. I still do. They aren't going anywhere.

As to the OP's question, I think Dwarf Fortress is your absolute best bet, if you are willing to completely forget about graphics. It's stated goal is to be the ultimate simulator of a fantasy world from creation onward. It already produces insane histories and is getting more complex with each passing day. Give it a shot, and don't let the bogeyman getcha.

 

[Mcface]

The Elder Scrolls is probably the best i've played to date.

you must not play many rpgs then.

he wanted open world and persistent.
nothing really compares to the quality, and the amount you can do.

EDIT: that doesn't look like an 8 bit piece of shit, and is older than I am.

TES =/= persistent. sure people are moving but its still FIXED. people do the same shit every day and the main quest FREEZES. if it WAS persistent than oblivion gates would have opened regardless of you visiting Kvatch or not. TES =/= persistent in any sense of the word. it may be open world but NOT persistent. you also fail to understand the scope of RPGs. Oblivion is just a drop in the bucket in quality expansive RPG games.

you call diablo, baldurs gate, plane scape torment, the old TES games, and fallout crap? yet you like bethesda's new FPS games? no surprise there. i am amazed you like rpgs at all and would even walk away from halo.

I like how you assume im talking about Oblivion when there are 5 other games in TES series.
Diablo is a overrated hack and slash, it was back then and it is now. The original fallouts also are awful. Any old turn based game is. It has nothing to do with skill of the player.

But yeah, no surprise here, another "LOL OLD GAYMES ARE BETR JUST BCUZ THEY R OLD" yes they may have been good 10 years ago. These days, no.

I don't consider this smudge looking pixel attack that smudge looking pixel with a sword that looks like a crudely penis with a 56% chance of missing fun. You may, but ill stick to shit that doesn't suck.

you say you don't like games with crappy graphics when you reference the NON-recent TES games? and call them "good"? and i thought i was a hypocrite.

Morrowind looks fine. At least I can tell what they are.
I play games as old as Vampire: bloodlines. It doesn't have to have GOOD graphics but a top down birds eye view of a small white pixel isn't exactly fun for me. Nor can I see how it's fun for anyone.

Fallout 2s first 10 hours in a nutshell.
"swing, miss. swing, miss. swing, miss. swing, hit, no damage done. swing, 5 damage done"
THRILLING!

oh yes god forbid an RPG isn't an FPS. god forbid that an RPG has anything other than "balls to the wall combat stolen directly from halo". /sarcasm.

I play plenty of non fps Rpgs. The Witcher, Dragon Age, Mount and Blade, Jade Empire.
And i do play top down RPGs as well, but they have to be at least semi-good looking for me to have any sort of immersion at all.
I know its hard for you to understand people may have different opinions on games, but at least try not to be so dense?

 

[MR T3D]

you want to be immersed into a world eh?
get STALKER, either Shadow of Chernobyl or Call of Pripyat, or better yet, both.

 

[Mcface]

The Elder Scrolls is probably the best i've played to date.

you must not play many rpgs then.

he wanted open world and persistent.
nothing really compares to the quality, and the amount you can do.

EDIT: that doesn't look like an 8 bit piece of shit, and is older than I am.

TES =/= persistent. sure people are moving but its still FIXED. people do the same shit every day and the main quest FREEZES. if it WAS persistent than oblivion gates would have opened regardless of you visiting Kvatch or not. TES =/= persistent in any sense of the word. it may be open world but NOT persistent. you also fail to understand the scope of RPGs. Oblivion is just a drop in the bucket in quality expansive RPG games.

you call diablo, baldurs gate, plane scape torment, the old TES games, and fallout crap? yet you like bethesda's new FPS games? no surprise there. i am amazed you like rpgs at all and would even walk away from halo.

I like how you assume im talking about Oblivion when there are 5 other games in TES series.
Diablo is a overrated hack and slash, it was back then and it is now. The original fallouts also are awful. Any old turn based game is. It has nothing to do with skill of the player.

But yeah, no surprise here, another "LOL OLD GAYMES ARE BETR JUST BCUZ THEY R OLD" yes they may have been good 10 years ago. These days, no.

I don't consider this smudge looking pixel attack that smudge looking pixel with a sword that looks like a crudely penis with a 56% chance of missing fun. You may, but ill stick to shit that doesn't suck.

you say you don't like games with crappy graphics when you reference the NON-recent TES games? and call them "good"? and i thought i was a hypocrite.

Morrowind looks fine. At least I can tell what they are.
I play games as old as Vampire: bloodlines. It doesn't have to have GOOD graphics but a top down birds eye view of a small white pixel isn't exactly fun for me. Nor can I see how it's fun for anyone.

Fallout 2s first 10 hours in a nutshell.
"swing, miss. swing, miss. swing, miss. swing, hit, no damage done. swing, 5 damage done"
THRILLING!

oh yes god forbid an RPG isn't an FPS. god forbid that an RPG has anything other than "balls to the wall combat stolen directly from halo". /sarcasm.

I play plenty of non fps Rpgs. The Witcher, Dragon Age, Mount and Blade, Jade Empire.
And i do play top down RPGs as well, but they have to be at least semi-good looking for me to have any sort of immersion at all.
I know its hard for you to understand people may have different opinions on games, but at least try not to be so dense?

oh yes because reading "/sarcasm" is hard isn't it? /heavier sarcasm.

You put "balls to the wall combat stolen from halo" in quotes, and then said /sarcasam. yet im supposed to assume you meant the whole comment? Continue to make yourself look silly, I tire of this. Good day sir.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

The reason why Morrowind works better than Oblivion in this respect is very simple: the side-quests are a damn lot better. The amount of detail put into the side-quest rivalries is basically unmatched in any other RPG I've ever played. The inter-House rivalry, the Dark Brotherhood vs Morag Tong rivalry, the Camonna Tong vs the Thieves' Guild, and, of course, the Tribunal vs Imperial Cult element. All these rivalries, which you bumped into at every corner, made the world more 'real' as there were these conflicts simmering under the surface of society.
That made Morrowind much more alive than Oblivion with its 'Radiant AI' and all that junk.

I've searched outside of the empire type games and also found the newly made Football Manager 2011 is a lot like this as well

I don't know how many hundreds of hours I've lost to the Football Manager series, but if you like the sport, get it. It's simple and highly addictive, but can get very frustrating when your players do stupid things. Oh, and it's brutally difficult. But the sense of achievement, well...

The only other game I can think of that has a highly responsive world with sophisticated AI would probably be one of the Paradox Interactive strategy games. Try Europa Universalis 3. Hooked for the last month, struggling to get clean.

 

[AnAngryMoose]

Fallout: New Vegas. Every action you take against someone will have repercussions. Unlike in Fallout 3 where you could kill a patrol of BoS Paladins for the gear and still be accepted by the BoS, in New Vegas they'll shoot you on site.

There are loads of different factions and depending on who you help, they'll either like or dislike you to varying degrees. The main story almost makes you really feel like your part of the game world and with the addition of Hardcore Mode for extra roleplaying value you'll be sucked in. Great, great game.

 

[Mortons4ck]

From my understanding OP, it seems like you want a game where the world doesn't revolve around the player.

As MR T3D mentioned, STALKER seeems to fit the parameters you've mentioned. I'd also recommend HardWar if you can find a copy.

 

[TraderJimmy]

Guild Wars 2, when it comes out, is promising this sort of gameplay. Might be one to keep your eye on.

 

[Chris Jensen]

Eve-online is a persistant world Sci-Fi RPG on a single server. I dont know if it is exactly what you are looking for, but I have played it for 3.5 years now, no other RPG has been able to hold my attention for that long.

TBH, I dont finish most RPG's. They either get too easy; or some part is so rediculously, frustratingly and world breakingly hard that I say F-it (even after I look up a walk through which by the way is the surest means to TOTALLY KILL my imersion in the game); or they are so long and grindy/boring that I quit playing them sometime before the end and never regain the motivation to finish them.

That being said it doesnt necessarily mean I didnt like them. I liked the original Diablo and even mangaed to beat it multiple times. (Diablo II never caught my interest and Diable III barely registers) Balder's Gate II or whichever was the one that came out on the PS2, also played through mutiple times. There was an older game called "Arcanum" which was in a steam-punk setting that I also liked but never finished, beware the magic side of Arcanum is so powerful it easily breaks the game coupled with the fact that you only ever need 1 spell well 2 if you count healing. Morrowind was a really good game and is mentioned several times in this thread but that game takes literally forever if you like to explore and do side quests, and consequentually I never finished it after making 2 characters and playing through to the middle of the main plot.

Deamon's Souls I am surprized is not mentioned yet. It's the 1st RPG I have come across in many years where the "RPG" part of the game involved more than micro-managing slightly better gear while you are being lead by the nose through a strictly linear storyline. C'mon, what role are you playing if the only choice you ever actually get to make is if you want a +9 sword or a +10 sword, and really all that boils down to is do you really want to handicap yourself for no good reason? You can litterally break the world in Deamon's Souls, though it defeats the purpose of trying to beat the game. You can also try to make the world better and both choices are extremely challenging if you are still actually trying to finish the game, which I havent... yet ^.^

Sorry for the wall of text, God bless you if you read through the whole thing and got any use out of it.

In retrospect this post is a lot like a BIG sandbox RPG, you can make the choice whether or not to dive in and get lost in it ;p

 

[Sneaklemming]

I gave the phrase in my title air quotes because I couldn't exactly label the type of genre this is. Open world RPGs like Oblivion or Fallout 3 or the gothic series is not what I mean at all. You are a fixed character in a fixed world. You're given choices to make but everything is planned to carefully. Minecraft is closer but is too free-roaming and without purpose. Minecraft WOULD be this if: There is a village of humans that is attacked by undead in the night, you can choose to lead the humans to build up and fight off the undead, be an undead and kill the humans, or be a 3rd party at any time, watching what happens and you can intervene if you want, join each faction.. even start your own faction to kill both, etc.

Here is your main issue. You want a sandbox... but you don't want a sandbox... but you don't want a guided experience - but you want a guided experience.

Honestly the only game that fits this prerequisite you've laid down is eve online.

There are "villages" being attacked by "undead" all the time in eve - and you can join the "villagers" and help defend, or the "undead" and help attack, or be a 3rd party, or create your own faction. Or join the "villagers" and steal/spy for the "undead" or be a reporter to report on the events occurring on this "village". Or w/e.

 

[Aethren]

Gothic 3 is nice, but maybe it's just me, that game is BRUTAL in terms of difficulty. I had to do some fancy footwork to dodge the attacks of a lowbie wolf, because the thing could kill me in 3 hits easy. And this was being a melee type.

And though there's really no RPG elements to it, Minecraft has probably the most persistant world in a game, there's just no plot to it.

The Civilization series are also good for the whole persistant world thing, if you're into that.