Yes, because if you're gonna label things, at least don't halfass it. Or, y'know, just drop the moniker and treat them as equals because it was stupid to do it in the first place.09philj said:
Shouldn't Bethesda Just Use The Term "Open World Sandbox"?
- Thread starter Cyncial_Huggy
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This sounds like a list of grievances you have with certain RPGs that you've now decided disqualifies these games from the RPG genre. While I too dislike some of these elements,that doesn't mean the games aren't RPGs. Watered down RPGs? Perhaps, but RPGs nonetheless.
Because the term RPG gives their games a sense of credibility that they lack.Cyncial_Huggy said:
Beth doesn't know wtf a real RPG is, one of their guys had an interview awhile ago where he took the term literally and called all games RPGs because you role play in them to some degree as if it was their arcane discovery he and he only had discovered.
Dude, you're posting this in the wrong place, few people here understand what you're talking about. Just got register at RPG Codex and endure their snobbery to at least talk to people who comprehend.
WTF are you smoking? New Vegas wasn't a Beth game, it was an Obsidian one made by some of the people who created the original ones, and it showed.
That depends on if you use the common bastardisation of the term RPG or if you use the term in its original intent.tippy2k2 said:
Lets consider the history of the term.
The term originally started as a way of distinguishing between different types of physical games. The standard board game is all rules, you role the die and move the right number of places, you match the right cards and you win, etc., these games may have some scenery to the rules such as "solving a murder" or "getting all the money" but they aren't really part of the game, they just "justify" the idea of playing the game and solving the puzzle of the rules better than your opponents.
Role Playing Games were different. You still had the rules, gain levels, role a die to fight orcs, etc., but those rules weren't the point of the game, the point of the game was to play a role to make decisions and change the story because of those decisions. In these games the rules were the scenery and the ability to define a role was the game.
Yet, unfortunately, human beings like to focus on rules and, as such, the term RPG became attached not to the concept of playing a role, but instead to the very rules it was meant to be drawing attention away from.
And so, RPGs are now apparently games with a levelling system and stats such as DEX and SPD even though those are all simply rule choices that allow you to better solve the puzzle of the game and have absolutely nothing to do with defining your character's role within the story.
So, to answer the question. If by RPG you mean a game where the game is playing a role and having a meaningful effect from that then, no, Final Fantasy and the like are not RPGs, they are games where you play with numbers and powers to win a fight with the story as the scenery to justify the act of playing with those numbers and rules.
If, on the other hand, you mean RPG as in "when you kill things you go up levels" then yes, they are RPGs.
But that seems like an utter waste of what was once a meaningful term...
There's a distinction between hardcore RPGs (immersive, narrative-serious, wide variety of stats/skills, restrictive character progression) and RPG-lites. Besides the expansive gameworld and some systems Bethesda has been creating lighter and lighter RPGs since Morrowind. Bioware has also gone in the lighter direction since Baldur's Gate II.
The classic hardcore RPG is Nethack (and it's variants). The ability to fail in multiple ways is a key ingredient of a hardcore RPG. You can fail in your character build, fail strategically against an enemy, fail to understand an aspect of the gameworld leading to either your character's death or your inability to progress in the game, etc. Dark Souls was such a breath of fresh air because so many companies had abandoned the hardcore aspect of RPGs in favor of "accessibility", by which they mean the inability to actually fail at the game, supported, defended, and apologized for by players as allowing them to "keep playing through the game" (no matter what). Even Dark Souls is light compared to truly hardcore RPGs.
The classic hardcore RPG is Nethack (and it's variants). The ability to fail in multiple ways is a key ingredient of a hardcore RPG. You can fail in your character build, fail strategically against an enemy, fail to understand an aspect of the gameworld leading to either your character's death or your inability to progress in the game, etc. Dark Souls was such a breath of fresh air because so many companies had abandoned the hardcore aspect of RPGs in favor of "accessibility", by which they mean the inability to actually fail at the game, supported, defended, and apologized for by players as allowing them to "keep playing through the game" (no matter what). Even Dark Souls is light compared to truly hardcore RPGs.
Oh, fun. This again. You've been adequately responded to on this point, so I'm not going to entertain it.Cyncial_Huggy said:
Rose colored glasses. Those games, while amongst my all time favorites, do not offer anything more meaningful in term of "decisions" than more modern offerings.Cyncial_Huggy said:
It's not a comprehension problem. It's a lack of respect for poorly presented argumentation. "DURR DURR I DON'T LIKE X BUT I LIKE RPGS THEREFORE X IS NOT AN RPG" is not exactly the Wilson Loop of forum arguments. Just more folks trying to bend the world to fit with their personal expectations of reality.beastro said:
Define "a meaningful effect". There are legions of games where you can "make decisions that have an impact on the story". Many of them are classified as shooters, or adventure games, or strategy. You make decisions in Dwarf Fortress. Is Dwarf Fortress an RPG? Is FTL an RPG? Bioshock? What about The Walking Dead or Life is Strange? You're making choices, those choices affect the story in "meaningful ways" (arguably far more meaningful than the window dressing that typified 90's offerings, or the utter lack of "decisions" whatsoever in 80's RPGs). Ultima, Wizardy, Bard's Tale, etc...these were all linear games with virtually no characterization whatsoever, but were rich in world building, story, theme, or dense tactical combat. Were those not RPGs?Maze1125 said:
This is the problem we run into when people try to gatekeep terminology. The term has come to encompass a great variety of conventions, both in pen and paper and in electronic mediums. Rather than trying to tell generations of people the RPGs they grew up playing and loving weren't actually RPGs because of some arbitrary "decisions" metric, why not just create distinctions that allow for granular identification of where games fall inside the genre? Like people have already been doing? For years?
Seems a lot more constructive.
That's obviously subjective. I never said it wasn't.BloatedGuppy said:
The term RPG is clearly a mailable one, there's no problem there. The problem is when people start attaching the term RPG to the mechanics of the game when the very point of the phrase "role playing" is that the mechanics are meant to only be the facilitators to your participation in the story.
Meh, terms are not strictly enforced and definitions aren't set, what you call RPG may be different then what Phil calls an RPG, and Bethesda's only draw is getting the most money and more people will buy it if it has RPG stuck on the box then open world sandbox. Your definition is severely flawed, RPG literally means you play the role of a character inside a game, anything past that is just our own definitions we've tacked on and have no marit in claimed correctness, hell to me RPG is closely affiliated with a progressive leveling system that stays throughout a game, choices to alter the game don't even come to mind.
Sorry for not contributing overtly to the topic at hand here (and I quite agree with many of your points, particularly about stats (like INT) not having the effects on gameplay that they should).Cyncial_Huggy said:
...But your link there is a complete joke. I don't know this DWTerminator guy, but he copied his whole script(aside from the initial comments on colour contrast and voiceacting), point for point (and in many cases literally word for word, phrase for phrase) from this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JweTAhyR4o0
I would advise you give that a watch instead, and not support a guy blatantly stealing content from other content creators.
By some similar logic one could say that Fallout 3 actually (by your own definition) is more of a "true" rpg than Fallout 1. After all, once out of the Vault in Fallout 3 you can do as you please. You could go around and do every single sidequest and go on never even finding your father if you feel like it. In Fallout 1 if you don't get the chip for the water in the Vault... if you don't follow the MORE linear path through the main quest... its a game over. Fallout 1 FORCES the player into his "chosen one" role, you HAVE TO be the Vault Dweller. But in Fallout 3 you CHOSE to be the Lone Wanderer. Because if you never tackle the main questline... you have chosen NOT to be the "chosen one."Cyncial_Huggy said:
Skyrim is the same, and so is more of a "true rpg" than Fallout 1. I have a couple of characters who AREN'T the Dragonborn. One (in my gameworld) is a "false dragonborn" who even fooled the graybeards, but became a broken man hellbent on revenge and mer genocide and lost his way. My next character was my game's "true" dragonborn. And another I made later just went West from Helgen and never made it to Riverwood and Whiterun. Thus never becoming the dragonborn at all, just an adventurer. Way more choice than Fallout 1 gives you.
Sorry, RPG is more in how you play a game and how you interact with that world than it is how that game is structured and what it's features are. If you ROLE PLAY in a game, it's an RPG. And that doesn't matter whether you are playing as a character you make, or a character you just make decisions for. Both types are role playing games.
Oh, and like the previous poster mentioned, the linked video was totally ripped off.
Frankly, what Bethesda does nowadays are mostly fantasy walking simulators. Post-apocalyptic fantasy walking simulators in case of Fallout.
And I like them that way.
Not really for the game systems, certainly not for the quality (heh ...) of their writing, but they are currently one of the best in world building. Add in the (comparatively) ridiculous availability to modding, overshadowed only by games where you have source code access like Minecraft, and you have games I love to play with.
And I like them that way.
Not really for the game systems, certainly not for the quality (heh ...) of their writing, but they are currently one of the best in world building. Add in the (comparatively) ridiculous availability to modding, overshadowed only by games where you have source code access like Minecraft, and you have games I love to play with.
Right? Complaining about Bethesda games giving you all the options upfront is a bit like being at a buffet and complaining that it has too much variety and options. Bethesda are pretty explicit about the fact that their games are meant to be played "buffet style" with each payer picking and playing the parts of the game they want to play. So if you want to go full competitionist and finish all quest lines, you do that. If you want to be "in character" and only do some of them, you do that. If some of them seem dull to you, skip them. If you don't want to explore? Just follow the main quest.WonkyWarmaiden said:
This is literally Bethesda's biggest strength.
On the flipside, it reminds me of something that bothered me about Skyrim. You can join, and become the head, of pretty much every faction in the game simultaneously. My heavy-armoured fighter was a member of the Companions, Thieves Guild(But having no real sneaking abilities), head of the College of Winterhold (Despite having only the bare minimum magical ability required to sneak in), head of the Dark Brotherhood, etc etc. (It's also pretty annoying that that is pretty much their default ending for each of these questlines: You finished it all and now you're the boss! Now run away and never see these people again!) Plus all of the titles regarding individual cities.Gethsemani said:
To be a broken record, I actually liked in Morrowind how in those questlines, some of the class based guilds required that you advance your skills to get more quests, and how many factions were exclusive. That even became a part of the ongoing plot.
Skyrim doesn't really do that very often. You've got Stormcloaks v Imperials (Which is basically irrelevant, and about as interesting as mouldy pudding, and plays background noise to the main quest) and in DLC, Vampire v Dawnguard (And that'll also require you not being a werewolf).
The buffet gives you variety, but it leaves the meal feeling overall without character. It's kind of nice to have that feeling that you've got a personal story built off your choices. And in a good chunk of the quests, it means that there is no requirements. My guy's a thug, but he has no trouble with the thieves guild stuff, because most of it doesn't involve proper thieving. Same with the mages stuff. And then they make me the head of the school. It feels like a way of padding out a single playthrough by allowing you to do everything, at the expense of everything feeling kind of shallow. It feels good to have to try for it, to make an effort at it. I like the option, but I also like the game making it clear that it's not bending over to include me in everything, that if I want to be a fighter, I need to fight, to be a mage, I need to do magic, and that make me choose occasionally.
Although the flipside to that is, it is a massive pain in the ass to replay for the other content. Although I always used to make saves for big choices in games. I really wouldn't characterize it as a Bethesda thing, it's really only a fairly recent aspect of their design, and I'm really not sure that it's a strength.
I still like Bethesda, and TES though(Including Skyrim). Not trying to rip them down. And they are RPGs(That term has been diluted and convoluted for decades). Calling a genre "sandbox" is silly. And in a game without choices, you're forced to play more of a role than in any blank slate voiceless protag western RPG.
Exactly what was on my mind.Kyrian007 said:
An example earlier was becoming head of the College of Winterhold without knowing any spells, and sorting out all the problems by brawn... But who is to say that the College knows that? All they know is you went to sources of ancient sorcery, brought back artifacts of incredible power, and stopped some really bad shit happening. Maybe they think you could only have done that using magic? Maybe your character tricked them? Maybe your character is just too damn intimidating? Maybe, considering the recent mishaps, no-one else wants the job?
Funnily enough, for someone to just look at you and say "your magicness is insufficient to obtain this quest from me" would be more immersion breaking, and actually be "hand holding" (i.e. telling you how to do your roleplaying). As it is, it gives freedom to the player to role-play different scenarios, and the player can just retcon/headcannon the exact hows and whys to get over any bumps.
TL;DR : If it annoys you when roleplaying that you have the choice to do something that you don't think your character would do, or the world would let them do... Erm... Don't do it?
You could just say 'I like X, Y and Z. It was found in older older fallout games and Planescape: torment. I hope there is more of it.' It seems to mean pretty much the same as what you are saying now only it is less likely to piss people of and makes much more sense. 'RPG' is just a word. It refers to what people think it refers to. Distinguising RPG's from true RPG's just comes of as pretentious and as if you don't know what the rest of the world means by that word.Cyncial_Huggy said:
I understand where you are coming from but that kind of presentation has its downsides as well. Everything being easy to get into runs the risk of making the gameplay boring and the story unemersive. When I started playing skyrim I pretty much became the grand wizard person in a couple of hours after playing through a contrived storyline. It killed all sense of purpose for me. Why would I continue playing. I was already a powerful and respected person, dragons were clearly not that much of a threath judging by the gameplay and I had top level wizard gear.Gethsemani said:
One of the moments in fallout: new vegas that I really liked was trying to run to NV directly over the highway and being chased out by poisonous insects and deathclaws. I actually knew where I wanted to go, I tried a plausible route (in fact, you can make it but I hadn't a clue what I was doing at that point) and failed because of who I was and the obstacles in the way. It felt real. In reality there are also area's and solutions that you avoid because they are too dangerous or impractical. Such a thing helped for emersion and gave purpose to levelling up further because there were still challenges to be faced.
Loonyyy said:
Going to address you both at once, since you bring up the same argument pretty much. Yes, it can dilute the sense of achievement, the immersion and break the suspension of disbelief to go down the buffet road of letting players do everything. It is not a perfect design decision, but it is a conscious decision on Bethesda's part an it is arguably one of the main designs of their games. One can critique the decision itself on the grounds that you have, that it doesn't work for all players and can leave players feeling unsatisfied (on the flip, many players also feel satisfied about being able to do everything with one character), but to say it is a weakness in Bethesda's games is a bit like saying a buffet offers too much variety. If you know you want a specific meal you should get that meal instead, just like you should be getting another RPG if you want a tighter story, more demanding gameplay or whatever else.Pseudonym said:
For what it is worth I enjoyed the Witcher 3 because it often put me in positions were I could make the "wrong" choice and lock out quests or miss out on content and where some combats and quests really put me on my toes (ie. the Vampire quest). I also enjoyed Skyrim because it always allowed me to just goof around, whatever I wanted my thief to become the head mage or just run out and start sliding swords down a mountain, Skyrim always treated my choices as if they were great choices. One can dislike either or both of those game designs, but they are also design choices made in order to make the games play a certain way.
I don't think that's really fair. For me, the reason I originally got into Bethesda's games was that personal story. It's not always a very tight one, it's not always the most straightforward, but it had this depth that engrossed me for hours on end, hoarding backups of saves on thumb drives and backup folders. There haven't been a large number of games that grabbed me like Morrowind did, and I think it's reasonable enough to hope that Bethesda includes more of that in future, just as you can prefer that they do not.Gethsemani said:
I do think it simplifies design, in that all players can see all content easily, and I do see a lot of merit to that. There's a bunch of games with branching stories or cut off content that I won't replay or go back to, to see what I had missed, because they just aren't good enough, or the choices are these tiny arbitrary things, where a cutscene is swapped, and things are essentially the same.
I know I can just not join the Thieves Guild, but that doesn't really change it for the better. It's not the same experience going through Skyrim and arbitrarily deciding not to do sections of the game, because even the game doesn't care what skills you use. You do more combat than Thieving for the Thieves Guild. Which comes down I guess to game design. Really, what matters most is that you can kill whatever they need you to, and the game doesn't exactly have a lot of imagination there.
I do very much sympathise with that. I don't like making the wrong choice, especially if the game has a large time investment, or isn't something you want to replay just for it.
I'd like to see narrative, or mechanical justification. I'd like to have to actually try to get to that position, through trickery, whether it's speechcraft and saying the right things to the right people, decieving them with the use of scrolls, or even threatening them.
I'd also really like them to think through making you the leader of everything. As head of the mage college, I am required to do nothing, and it's not like I can bring the college out to fight for me or anything. Same with the Dark Brotherhood. What's the point of being the head of an order of assassins if I can't recruit, train, and engage in conspiracies to kill various figures?
That is not necessarily true - while you are indeed playing your own role, to as far an extent as your imagination and suspension of belief will allow, the primary foundation is always set by the developers - as in, you are playing the role that they wrote/gave to you.Cyncial_Huggy said:
No matter what, there is a back-story in RPGs. No matter what, the character will never truly be yours unless you stitch together a bunch of mods and/or dive into the game's code and editing software personally.
So, yes; sandbox-RPG is a very appropriate term to use - especially since Bethesda makes many choices available that only make sense in a sandbox. For example: why will every companion in Fallout 4 be interested in a homosexual PC? It makes no sense, realistically, as not everyone is/will be gay. But in sandbox terms, the decision to make this the case, is perfectly understandable.