Quote:Original post by Run_The_Shadows
Number one gripe about CRPGs: Most of them have very little replay factor.
I play CRPGs, for the most part, because I enjoy the story and want to treat it like an interactive movie or book. I don't play it for the combat, or for the graphics, or for the super cool cutscenes.
However, most games these days just don't have any replay value in their stories. I really enjoyed Baldur's Gate 2 + ToB. Thought it was a brilliant game - but as much as I'd like to replay it, I know that there's very little that would be different on another playthrough.
I think BG2 had alot of replay value:
1) Playing a different class/race - if you are a hard roleplayer like me, this is the basis for most of you game variety as well as a alignment. And they all had different stronghold quests.
2) Playing a different alignment
3) Upping the difficulty
4) Choosing different companions
5) Accepting different subquests, or completing them in a different way - e.g. poisoning the Druid grove instead of challenging Faldorn (esp. with Jaheira in your party :-) I'm really into roleplaying so I would rarely if ever save and reload just to see what happened. Instead I would do as I though my character would do in that situation. And if you played like a real hero, you should have chosen your ally the minute you got the 15K gold to rescue Imoen.
6) Romancing different characters (though I only ever found Viconia appealing, even when I played good :-| The other characters portraits and voice acting just wasnt sexy enough for me.
7) Doing fun things like fighting the Cowled Wizards for using magic "illegally" and refusing to pay their bribe. I would first soften them up with a couple of skeleton warriors which I had already summoned from the saftey of inside a building. Then I would cast a spell and move out of the way before they teleported in. Then I would send my squadron of skeleton warriors against them, who will burn up all their magic power because they had 90% magic resistance :-). With their magic used up and protections warn off, they were pretty suspectible to Abu Dazims Horrind Wilting and my fighers. And after you defeat a couple waves, their leader will come and if you beat him, they never bother you again. Silly Cowleds. One of my favorites :-)
8) Soloing: Yes, its possible, if done right, even with a crappy character like a Jester! I was really suprised the first time I pulled it off. Though two certain items will make it ALOT easier ;-)(and no, you don't have to cheat to get them) I had to turn the difficulty down exactly once, when I played as a mage and absolutely could not get passed a trapped area in Irenicus' dungeon.
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Even in games such as KOTOR, where you have a 'choice', the developer's gimp it down to a single line of thought. In the original, for instance, no matter how terrible or angelic you had been, the entire 'multiple endings' was chosen in a moment of dialogue a few minutes before the end of the game.
Mostly true, it didn't really affect gameplay much (all roads lead to Rome, so to speak) although quests could be resolved in different ways giving you Light Side or Dark Side poitns (or no points). And in alot of conversations with Bastila and Carth, your behavior will change their response, though there is really only two dialogues (good and evil), and it doesn't effect gameplay much until right before you leave the Unknown World for the StarForge. I was disappointed in the lack of a "neutral" option, especially since Jolee seems to follow that path. e.g., It would be cool if after defeating Malak instead of the celebration with the Jedi Council or becoming leader of the Sith, you did something else besides cheerlead with the Jedi. (I had numerous other issues with KoToR as well, but only mentioned the relevant ones)
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Nonlinearity is still a pipe dream in most cases, it's just being hidden by developers better and better these days.
For single player RPGs, I would agree. KOTOR and Baldurs gate are kind of like those "Choose Your Own Adventure Novels" with two or three ending variations and quite a few bottlenecks.
The only way this is going to change is if game engine and levelling/modelling/artwork become cheap, which may happen someday but not in the immediate future. The problem now that every two years game companies have to rebuild entire engines from scratch, and you generally can't reuse artwork or models either. If it ever becomes the case that those two things become cheap, then game companies could be composed almost exclusively or storywriters and designers who would be more than happy spending all their time writing huge "story trees" with multiple endings, plot arcs, etc. to their hearts content.