Shouldn't Bethesda Just Use The Term "Open World Sandbox"?

[Something Amyss]

If you want an RPG experience play Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, Fallout 1 and 2. Games where every single detail of what you do is observed and played through.

If you want an RPG experience, play a pencil and paper RPG.

Or we could understand that RG is already a bastardised concept, and just live with the fact that there's no real RPG experience in a video game. RPG has a different meaning in gaming, and that's okay. Taking a "purist" stance in this situation is kind of ridiculous, though. especially since use of "RPG" to descrive the "modern" games you're decrying dates back to before Planescape.

The games, but also the D&D setting as well.

 

[Sanderpower]

People are still arguing what makes a game an RPG or not? You do realize that videogames genres are all pretty messed up right? You'll have multiple games that are a combination of different genres and yet can somehow not even be part of them. For example, portal is a first person game in which you "shoot" things. Yet it's not an FPS game as we know it.

Skyrim is an RPG, a Sandbox RPG, because it takes many of the elements that entails an RPGs. It may not be the same KIND of RPG that Planescape or Baldurs Gate is, but just because it's not like those RPGs, doesn't mean it's not one of it's own. The fact of the matter is that with video game genres we just put them in the closest type of genere they can resemble. Skyrim closely resembles that of an Action-Adventure RPG.

I'm sorry that some people are upset that the "purity" of the title RPG applies to so many different games. But the very nature of the term means it will apply to many different kinds of games. There is really nothing you can change about that fact. You can call your Fallout 1's c-RPG's or Hardcore RPGs. But saying games like Skyrim and Fallout New Vegas are not "true" RPG's is just a futile attempt to "purify" the genre.

 

[BarryMcCociner]

It's a sandbox RPG.

Bethesda has cheerfully referred to their games as sandboxes for a very long time now. It's considered a positive distinction.

Sandbox describes the method with which you interact with the environment. It's not a genre.

I think the point he was trying to make was that it feels less like an RPG than it should.

Think about the guildlines in Skyrim, there's no real alternate factions. There's one mages guild, there's one warriors guild, theres two thief guilds (but one's sneaky/stabby and ones picky/pinchy). Technically in the faction files you do join the Greybeards faction, and there's two military factions. There's also a bards faction where you don't really do that much bardery. And I suppose you could count every Hold as a faction because you can become a Thane.

Now let's look at Morrowind's factions, shall we?

Factions in Morrowind can be divided into two distinct categories, Pro-Empire and Anti-Empire.

You have three "Great Houses" you can join, Hlallu, Redoran and Telvanni. You can only join one of these Houses and doing so will affect your relationship with all other factions. For instance Hlallu is staunchly Pro-Empire so you will suffer a negative faction relationship with all Anti-Empire factions.

There's sophistication through simplicity in that choice, it genuinely felt as if you were stepping into a world with it's own political landscape.

There's also two religious factions, the Imperial Cult and the Tribunal Temple. There's a subtle role play element you can work with here, do you Join the faction which supports the gods your character worships? Or do you join the opposing one to keep up good relations with the factions you're currently in?

And what's perhaps most telling about how much effort was put into Morrowind. Think back to the way Morrowind handled Vampire Clans compared to Skyrim.

You had three Vampire Clans you could join, each had its own separate strain of vampirism that would give different statistical bonuses. If you wanted to cure your vampirism you had to cracks some books and learn the lore of the vampires in the game.

It might seem meaningless, sure. But it's a role-playing element and unfortunately a lot of games seem to have forgotten what that means.

That's why Morrowind is a better example of what RPG's can be than Skyrim. In Morrowind you had to make a conscious decision to step into the boots of your character and learn about the world (s)he lived in, you had to actively play a role to succeed in that game. In Skyrim? Yeah, Dragonborn, cool, master of Every guild. Go kill dragons.

I hated Dragon Age II, but I fell in love with Inquisition. One of the reasons I loved DA:I was that it would keep tabs on things Origins would have forgotten. It remembers if your character believes (s)he's the Herald of Andraste. It remembers if your Character believes in the Maker. This is important because the game ACTIVELY wants you to be playing the role of another person.

 

[AgedGrunt]

A virtual sandbox is a plain world that has no official interpretation and meaning until it's created. Minecraft and Second Life are examples of open-world sandboxes.

I think the word is overplayed when applied to RPGs and action/adventure games like GTA, because they are not sandboxes. Roaming freedom and interactivity doesn't make something a sandbox. These are complete, detailed worlds with lore, and the games have one thing a sandbox doesn't have: a narrative. If you were to get into Minecraft you could technically build GTA V, but it would not be GTA V because it has no engine bringing it to life; it would be the equivalent of sand castles.

Just because an RPG has leveling up elements doesn't make it an RPG, even Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has somewhat of a leveling system - but that's an element, but it doesn't change the whole way the game is played neccessarly, sure doing them will give you perks but that's it. Fallout 4 will be a good game, I'm sure, but a good OPEN WORLD game - just not an RPG.

I can't believe you've read anything about what's going into F04 (and honestly have to doubt you understand RPGs at all) if you believe the leveling system is all Bethesda is playing at with their RPGs and that it doesn't make them RPGs but "sandbox" games. If you just want depth in regard to things like branching stories and choices that matter, it's the Mass Effect argument all over again; still doesn't disqualify a game from being an RPG.

 

[happyninja42]

The idea that you can be so many chosen ones of so many is a little off putting assuming you play one character to complete all the quests.

What I like to do is use that another-life mod where you start off in a specific guild (or other options) but then I only join that one guild to play. Once I hit level 50 my character retires. He's gotten old.

I consider being Dragonborn to be it's own guild and I mostly avoid the main story (and all the dragons ruining my strolls safely down the road).

Yeah, I did that quite a lot too. Really it depended on the character background I made for that particular playthrough.

My Son of Talos for example. He was your classic Nord, and did the Stormcloak campaign, and joined only the Companions. He was a fun playthrough, as he did dungeon crawls by going into the place, shouting Fus Ro Dah at the entrance to wake up the badguys, and then fight them all at once before moving to the next cluster of badguys. Dungeon crawls were really fast with him. xD

My Garrett Thief: Didn't touch the main storyline at all, and just did the Thieves Guild stuff. I didn't kill anyone, and stole from people who offended me. I would leave a feather on their doorstep as my calling card that I had robbed them.

My pacifist Priest of Arkay: Only did the Dawnguard DLC stuff, and ran around with a companion doing my fighting for me, spending all my energy buffing people to keep them alive in combat. Worked surprisingly well actually.

So yeah, I never did the "join all 3 guilds" thing, as I found it fairly silly and dull, and unrealistic, it broke the immersion for me.

OT: We come up with new words for things all the time. RPG's are not just your tiny definition of the term, and never really has been. So get over it.

 

[RJ 17]

Again, the term RPG. It's not really an RPG, it's a hybrid of the genre. RPG is means Role-Playing. Which means I'm pretending and being immersed into my own decisions and my own world, but the problem with Skyrim is my own world and my own decisions are 100% everyone else in terms of plot and story. While, in say, the original Fallout what I did might have been completely different from a lot of others and sure you all did the same thing and got to the end, you could do it immensley different from the other person beside you.

If you want an RPG experience play Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, Fallout 1 and 2. Games where every single detail of what you do is observed and played through.

By your definition, there's no such thing as an RPG that's a videogame...the only thing that could be considered an RPG is a table-top RP game. Torment, BG, FO1 and 2...all those games are exactly the same. You're not special. The choices you make aren't special. The builds you create aren't special. Someone before you has done the exact same thing. Chances are you play the exact same way on a number of playthroughs depending on what "class" you want to play as.

As such, you need a broader definition for RPG when it comes to videogames. The one thing that all of those games mentioned above - and Skyrim, as another example - have in common is the fact that they all have blank-slate characters. There's where the RP comes into play. The story is determined by how you play the character and what you choose to do with it.

Or perhaps a better way of looking at it: what you choose not to do with your character.

For instance: you're a 2hander heavy-armor wearing orc in Skyrim...why the hell would you have anything to do with the Thieve's Guild or the Mage's College? Neither of those professions seem like the type of calling a big beefy tank character would likely respond to. Similarly, if you're a spell-slinging dark elf who's entire wardrobe consists of various glowing robes, you have no business signing up for the Companions.

Quite simply, the rule for good RPing - and this applies to even Table-Top RPing - is to make your own story, not to simply play a character within the story that was provided for you. Think of Skyrim, Torment, FO, ect as templates. They give you a setting and some key points of attractions (i.e. quests/factions), but you don't have to do all - or even any - of it.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

Why do people always draw lines in the sand of what a "true" thing is, and then act all superior to fans of the "non-true" thing?

I mean yeah, the new Bethesda games are a lot more linear and hand-holdy than the older ones, but you don't need to act all high and mighty.

I think Skyrim and Fallout New Vegas took some good steps forward. In Skyrim at least you had the option of joining the Empire or the Stormcloaks, and New Vegas had tons of extra dialogue options and different ways to finish quests. Yeah they could have been better, but I still look forward to FO4 and whenever the next Elder Scrolls game comes out.

Labels help us define things. The whole genre naming thing has been mucked up. Someone reload a a new save so we can try again.

I kinda agree in the sense that the naming of these genres are inaccurate at best. Every other game now is an action adventure game, which doesn't really say a whole lot.

Also, Role Playing Game can technically describe almost every single game because you are "playing" a "role"

I mainly object to the "true" part, though, just seems a bit pretentious. What the OP is railing against, hand-holdy quest markers and what not, I hate too, but it is something that happens in all genres of gaming.

Its kind of funny that linear games even have floaty arrows pointing you to where you need to go, because most of the time they aren't needed. Like if you are in a hallway, with one door at the end, and one door you came in, do you really need an arrow on the fucking door?

 

[Maze1125]

Also, Role Playing Game can technically describe almost every single game because you are "playing" a "role"

No you are not. In the vast majority of games you are playing a game with a set of rules while a role is given to you as thematic justification for your actions.

Very very few game allow you to take a role and play with it. You never play the roles of Gordon Freeman or Masterchief, you follow them, with absolutely no option for changing the role you are given. It's a very important distinction.

This problem is also true for the vast majority of "JRPGs".