Quote:Original post by shoyoninja
Yeah, I think I stated things a little too black and white :P.



What I mean is that there is a different way to do it, and that it presents a different feel to the player.

Lets say you have a plate mail and a leather vest on your game. Instead of a stats screen for it like this:

Leather:
Def: 10
Wg: 5
SPD: -2

Plate:
Def: 30
Wg: 40
SPD: -10

You could tell just this to the player:
Leather:
Designed to provide some protection while preserving the user ability to move swiftly through the battle field. The tag reads: "100% dragon scale".

Plate:
Many own their lives to the hardened protection this piece of equipment provides. While the extra load isnt suited to the average, fast moving, pick pocketing, back stabbing thief, it will surely please a mighty warrior who would rather just walk over his enemies with sheer strenght, and is too lazy to worry about their arrows and swords. Also, looks good as decoration on the living room.

And let the game worry about the numbers.

It could work well, and its been a very long time since I saw any game using this kind of item system.

Again, I dont mean that all games should be like this, its just a different approach that I miss.

I believe I understood you the first time. I both agree and disagree. I agree that games should experiment more with obscuring the numbers in favor of generic descriptions, but I just feel that the weapons I equip are an exception. I want to see all the numbers, stats, and details. To me, that's what makes it fun, and that is why I love sifting through loot. If important details were buried away in vague descriptions, I would be fairly upset. Perhaps someone else will have the courage to construct such a system, but I am just too attached to level of detail in loot right now (like in Diablo II).

My problem with newer RPGs is they hold your hand and walk you through the game like your a 3 year old kid.

My personal favorite RPGs that has some self-exploration,learning are Gothic and Risen both from the same developer.

Quote:Original post by Black Knight
My problem with newer RPGs is they hold your hand and walk you through the game like your a 3 year old kid.

You must love Star Control II then. I have no idea how people ever beat it before the age of internet walkthroughs.

@Nanoha -- I would love to see a game offer that much flexibility in finishing the game. What is the best approach? Does the designer really have to come up with all combinations? Or is there some systematic/algorithmic approach that can be applied to how the story finishes?

@apefish -- My friend and I would often make fun of the TV show Samurai Jack in this regard (even though it was our favorite show). It was some kind of rule that all creatures are arbitrarily hostile and will attack mercilessly until one or the other dies. I like how creatures can be either neutral or hostile based on how you treated them in games like Ultima 8. There are a couple creatures in Zelda games that would only run away. I remember working hard to chase down and kill this one particular sprinter in Twilight Princess. (Sadly, there was no real reward for doing so. I was hoping there would be because the creature serves no other purpose. It's just weird that they exist.) I also like it when monsters fight each other based on the circumstances.

I like your comments on not having a mini-map. I never really considered that before. I think I will experiment with giving the player paper maps now occasionally to refer to but have no map displays otherwise. It's weird because it's one of those things that didn't really register until you mentioned it. It's like, "Hey, yeah, mini maps are stupid!"

@Bearhugger -- AMEN! I miss the 2D RPG era. One of my goals in producing in an RPG is to use 3D very gently. The world will be rendered in 3D, but I want to build it using a cube tile set of sorts. I want it to feel constructed in an old-school manner. Content creation is MUCH faster, and I think it can really attain that 'charm' element that was discussed earlier. I think bleeding edge 3D RPGs are garbage. The obsession with adding physics engines to nosehairs is really annoying today. There comes a point where visual realism harms the experience. That is my opinion, anyway...

@MrMorley -- Interesting observations. It really does seem that the individual games need to better decide what direction they want to take the rules. I bought Morrowind during a $5 Steam sale, but I haven't played it yet. Maybe I should get on that. I agree that in the case of RPGs, the focus should indeed be on the character's skills, not the player's.

@Black Knight -- Outta curiosity, can both be achieved? Can a game offer a free-roam experience next to a hand-holding experience for those whose brains are incapable of wandering aimlessly? I definitely agree that the hand-holding needs to stop, but if too many people hate the experience, it's just as damaging. I really want to build a game that appeals to all audiences.

@Crowseye -- It is really difficult to mitigate the one-best-path issue. It seems that no matter how many options there are, players like to funnel into some guide containing the "best path" with the "best loot". Ideas?

I don't know how if both can be achieved as they are very opposite in nature.
If you put in lots of help in the form of directions arrows or showing where to go on the map or minimap people will use that because we are lazy.

For example in gothic 1-2 you have a map but i never shows you where to go you just get a quest from someone telling you to find this x person at the old mines and gives you rough directions like head out of town follow the road in to the mountains etc. etc. So you only know the name of this person and finding him becomes a quest on its own. You go through the map, avoid monsters on the way or get killed if you wander too deep into the forest and finally you find this npc. After doing some quests between these characters and the surrounding area you begin to know these places,characters and you know that you can find Diego sitting by the fire at the old camp or Milten with the fire mages in the castle etc. The characters become like real persons. If the game had a minimap and arrows to show you where to go your brain will follow these directions instead of trying to learn the area and associate them with the npcs etc.

The beautiful thing about gothic was npcs were moving from place to place depending on the time of day or where you were in the storyline so if diego wasn't by the fire he was probably at his hut nearby or chopping some wood.

But I totally agree that this kind of design makes lots of people just ditch the game after playing for like 10 minutes because they can't find a NPC and get killed in the first quest because they charged into a beast that is too powerful.

[Edited by - Black Knight on June 1, 2010 8:59:16 PM]

Quote:Original post by Storyyeller

Quote:Original post by Black Knight
My problem with newer RPGs is they hold your hand and walk you through the game like your a 3 year old kid.

You must love Star Control II then. I have no idea how people ever beat it before the age of internet walkthroughs.

We took notes. [grin]

Sometimes I feel the major difference between RPGs of today and RPGs of yore is a bit like the comparison some folks make between growing up in the city and growing up in the country-- regimen and structure. I think many RPGs started out like life in the open wilds, without a big brother to tell you every second where to go or what you had to do. Many games had freakin' MASSIVE worlds-- Daggerfall's hundreds of towns, entire continents in Ultima, 200 stars and 800 planets to explore in Starflight.

I get a little sad when I see how small modern games are in feel. There's not a world or universe to explore, there's a postage-stamp sized area littered with DO and DON'T signs safely fenced in for our protection. God forbid that we should be frustrated by a puzzle we have to sleep on or an enemy we have to experiment with to finally beat.

My dream RPG would probably be anathema to many AAA RPG players these days: There's a story but you can tell it to go hang itself while you do your own thing; there's as much combat as you seek or avoid because the game offers variety in stealth or negotiation or other non-linear strategies; and the world or universe is really that-- cohesive, thought out, filled with small little activities and HUGE.