RPGs: The State of Play

[frogbeastegg]

This thread's here to house a continuation of the discussion about the state of RPGs which began on page 4 of the Mass Effect 2 teaser thread. I won't move any posts over as there's no neat and clean dividing line between ME discussion and the wider subject.

The main questions raised cam be summed up with:
Where are RPGs?
Where were they?
What's better?
What's worse?
What needs to change?
How do you perceive the genre in the past, present and future?
Why?

[TinCow]

I think that in order for there to be a discussion about the state of RPGs, we should probably figure out what an RPG is in the first place. A lot of hardcore 'old school' RPG fanatics focus a great deal on dialog and freedom of choice within an pen storyline. However, the industry isn't anywhere near that limiting in its descriptions. Diablo is today classified as an "action RPG". First, it's worth noting that when Diablo was released, the word "action" wasn't anywhere near its genre description. It was called an RPG, plain and simple. We have since coined the "action RPG" term to describe games that utilize a RPG character system, but focus on combat instead of questing.

So, is an Action RPG an RPG? Is it a separate genre, or a subgenre of RPGs? How do we even draw the line between a regular RPG and an Action RPG? Looking back at some of the earliest RPGs, they have a stupendous amount of combat with relatively flimsy storylines and almost no freedom of choice in the plotline. The Ultima, SSI Gold Box, and Might and Magic series all involved essentially linear storylines there were completed in a sequential manner, with few, if any, choices about how to resolve them. The only choices were really whether to complete a quest or ignore it, and what order to do the quests in.

Might and Magic is an extreme example of this. Pretty much all dialog and NPC interaction in those games was limited to (1) giving you quests which involved going out and killing monsters, with no plot options for you to choose and (2) improving your characters' abilities in some manner. On top of that, every map you were on threw hordes of monsters at you, with loot galore. Yet the M&M games are called regular RPGs, while Diablo gets the Action RPG designation.

So, what exactly is an RPG? Is it any game where the player character has stats and abilities that improve over time? If so, do we call Bioshock an RPG? What about STALKER? How exactly is Ultima Underworld different from Borderlands?

[econ21]

To address TCs point about defining RPGs, I think there are a number of key elements that characterise such games, although I am not sure any one is necessary.

(1) Character building and gearing up - the stats, levelling and the loot. This is a core part of RPGs like Dungeons and dragons and World of Warcraft. Some regard it as an essential part - so a game like Max Payne might not be regarded as an RPG because it lacks stats (although you do collect and can vary the weapons you use).

(2) Making "meaningful" choices - with either an ethical aspect and/or ones that affect the world around you. Bioware games tend to do this well, as did Fallout. To my mind, this is closer to essential as it represents playing out a role. But as TC says, with some classics like Might and Magic, it is absent.

(3) Acting out a role in a story - here immersion and atmosphere are key. This is weaker than (2) because you may not have any choice at all - the story may be linear and your "choices" all scripted (you are going to save the world from the demon invasion). However, if feeling "in character" is essential to the experience, I would argue a case can be made for it being an RPG (or at least a hybrid). Stalker or System Shock might be examples here. You had no real choices in terms of affecting the story, but being free to roam the world and (in the case of System Shock) experience the story was a key element to the game and made them much more than shooters.

If I were to attempt a definition, I would say an RPG has to have at least two of the above. So System Shock has stats and story, so is an RPG. The same with Might and Magic - although TC rightly characterises the series, I found some of the games (MM6 and MM7) very immersive. The first person perspective and vast world made it easier for me to suspend disbelief than in the isometric Baldur's Gate. I confess I liked to play them trying to make actions in "character" ("Let's investigate the Temple of Baa" rather than "Let's raise to Freehaven to learn town portal"). Max Payne and probably Stalker don't have enough of the stats and stuff to be classified as RPGs. However, I am not sure a precise definition is important, except in order to highlight the key game features that should be appraised when discussing an RPG.

For what it is worth, I think RPGs are in good shape. The old school DnD type games that focussed solely on (1) are becoming obsolete, as players find them rather arid experiences. Pools of Radiance and The Temple of Elemental Evil are examples of this failure. Designers know they need to "wow" the audience with more cinematic elements. As computers develop, it is easier for them create vivid experiences that cover (3). Giving more content to the experience, by introducing real choices as la (2) seems to becoming more common, as games like Fable and even Bioshock (free or harvest sisters?), follow the path blazed by Bioware.

I haven't mentioned combat, which is a fourth element and tends to be the main form of gameplay in most RPGs. I'd be happy to see more games with a Deus Ex style "no kill" routes to victory. PST and Fallout also did this to some extent. While stealth missions and diplomatic options etc are becoming common, allowing wholly non-combat routes through RPGs seems very rare nowadays. Fallout 3 falls down on this. Another example might be Vampire Bloodlines - which started off well, being rather combat light, but then ended up throwing ridiculous numbers of mobs at you towards the end. Arcanum was similar and in both cases, it probably signalled the game designers running out of time or ideas. However, allowing non-combat solutions tends to go well with the second key RPG element - making moral choices.

[Meneldil]

I don't have much time to reply to all the points made earlier, but I think one big difference between the Golden Era-RPG's (late 90's) and nowadays RPG's is the way the world seems to be closed.

The Might and Magic serie was pretty action based, that true. You'd spam the attack key to cut through hordes of mobs. Dialogue was pretty much inexistent: guy asks you to kill some mobs, and rewards you with money.
But Might and Magic offered a vast, open world. You had a main plotline, but you could go visit dozens of unrelated places before being done. Exploring the whole world took dozens of hours.

Baldur's Gate did even better. Not only it offered a vast world, with a rather large amount of sidequests and several areas to explore unrelated to the main plot, but it also did a heck of a job with dialogues and immersion, two things that IMO were badly lacking in previous RPG's.

Arcanum and Fallout were mostly similar. The world seemed huge, and believable. You'd meet people who would do stuff on their own, talk to you about random events.

Since then, something has changed.
RPG's decided to cut down on the "useless, vast world to explore" thingy. Worlds don't feel living anymore.
That's especially true of DA:O. When you visit Redcliff, all doors are closed, except for a few ones. And if you can open it, it means there's a quest inside.
There's no useless area to visit, and you can't get away from the main plot. Characters who aren't involved in a quest don't have anything to say.
You arrive in a village? Check out which doors you can open to know what you have to do. And if you can loot a body, it means it's quest related too.
That was the same thing for ME, NWN1 and 2, KotOR1&2. Maybe the 3D is to blame. But I'm pretty sure it would have been easier to create a living world with NWN1&2 toolsets than it had been for BG1 or Fallout.

And oddly, the same applies to JRPG's. Have a look at the Final Fantasy franchise. Those games have always been quite straightforward. You start in point A, go through points B, C and D until you arrive to the big bad guy. There are a few sidequests on the way, a few choices to make (who am I going to date at the Golden Saucer?), a few hidden stuff to find. Until FF9, despite that, the world at least seemed open. You'd be running around doing stuff, in a completely straightforward fashion, but you wouldn't notice it.
Then, FF10 and 12 were released. Both were terribad (IMO), because you immediatly felt that you were litteraly running on an endless road, from point A to point Z. Sure, at some point you'd get the ability to go back to point D, or M, but it would still be the same endless road. You'd have to watch Tidus running for hours, from one side of the screen to the other again, and again and again. A real immersion killer. The same was true of FF12, though it was nearly as bad.

[econ21]

I don't have much time to reply to all the points made earlier, but I think one big difference between the Golden Era-RPG's (late 90's) and nowadays RPG's is the way the world seems to be closed.

That's true of many contemporary RPGs - perhaps especially Bioware ones. But it's not true of others such as Oblivion, Fallout 3 or MMOs such as World of Warcraft.

However, there's a trade off between the vastness of the world and its richness. Morrowind is an example of a fairly modern RPG that's very large and open, but IMO suffered in comparison with Bioware games in terms of the quality of the dialogue, quests, story and NPC characterisation. Personally, I think Bethesda were right to trim the world for Oblivion and introduce a more cinematic main story, but still did not go far enough. I think MMOs also tend to verr too much towards breadth rather than depth, quantity rather than quality.

The interesting case for me will be Star Wars the Old Republic - seeing if Bioware can combine the breadth of an MMO world with the quality of their SP games. In this case, I can totally see that it will take the revenue stream of WoW competitor to make a success of such an ambition.

[TinCow]

However, there's a trade off between the vastness of the world and its richness. Morrowind is an example of a fairly modern RPG that's very large and open, but IMO suffered in comparison with Bioware games in terms of the quality of the dialogue, quests, story and NPC characterisation. Personally, I think Bethesda were right to trim the world for Oblivion and introduce a more cinematic main story, but still did not go far enough. I think MMOs also tend to verr too much towards breadth rather than depth, quantity rather than quality.

That's interesting. I think Oblivion was significantly inferior to Morrowind specifically because they trimmed the world and focused more an the cinematic main story. If there's one guiding principle which best determines whether I'll like a game, it's an open gameworld. I like to be able to explore and 'live' in the game without restrictions on where I can go and what I have to do. I must've played Morrowind about 10 times, but I only finished the main storyline twice. I probably played Oblivion the same number of times, but after finishing the main quest the very first time, I never even advanced the main quest at all on any of the other plays... the Amulet of Kings just turned into another object in my trophy room.

That's one of the reasons I love STALKER so much. It's an FPS where I can just run around and live in the FPS world. Again, in that game I completed the main story the first time I played it, but have gone back and replayed it several times without ever having any desire to finish it again. For me, it's not the main story that is entertaining, it's the game world itself. Hence my enjoyment of GTA: Vice City and my less than enamored views on Mass Effect.

[Scienter]

So, is an Action RPG an RPG? Is it a separate genre, or a subgenre of RPGs? How do we even draw the line between a regular RPG and an Action RPG? Looking back at some of the earliest RPGs, they have a stupendous amount of combat with relatively flimsy storylines and almost no freedom of choice in the plotline. The Ultima, SSI Gold Box, and Might and Magic series all involved essentially linear storylines there were completed in a sequential manner, with few, if any, choices about how to resolve them. The only choices were really whether to complete a quest or ignore it, and what order to do the quests in.

I don't think so. Loot and stats/skill tree do not make a RPG. I don't feel like Diablo is a RPG, I think "action RPG" is a good name for a sub-genre of RPGs so long as it's clearly defined.

I think to be a true RPG, a game needs a rich world that the player can interact with through means other than just meeting cool new creatures and then slaughtering them. I think it needs choices, quests that involve conversations with NPCs/companions, and enough lore and side quests to make the world feel 'real.' The player needs to be able to have options to actually act as their character, instead of just killing stuff. Don't get me wrong, killing stuff is lots of fun, but you need more than that and a thinly developed plot to have a RPG.

[Scienter]

However, there's a trade off between the vastness of the world and its richness. Morrowind is an example of a fairly modern RPG that's very large and open, but IMO suffered in comparison with Bioware games in terms of the quality of the dialogue, quests, story and NPC characterisation. Personally, I think Bethesda were right to trim the world for Oblivion and introduce a more cinematic main story, but still did not go far enough. I think MMOs also tend to verr too much towards breadth rather than depth, quantity rather than quality.

I enjoyed Morrowind significantly more than Oblivion. If Bethesda wanted to make the world in Oblivion smaller to make it more rich, I think they made a mistake in designing the cities, they all felt too similar. I got spoiled with the cities in Morrowind, they were vastly different in architecture and culture, that was lost in Oblivion, and made the world feel too small because the cities seemed interchangeable.

[Meneldil]

However, there's a trade off between the vastness of the world and its richness. Morrowind is an example of a fairly modern RPG that's very large and open, but IMO suffered in comparison with Bioware games in terms of the quality of the dialogue, quests, story and NPC characterisation. Personally, I think Bethesda were right to trim the world for Oblivion and introduce a more cinematic main story, but still did not go far enough. I think MMOs also tend to verr too much towards breadth rather than depth, quantity rather than quality.

Agreed, but to me, Baldur's Gate, Fallout and Arcanum got it right, as they offered an open and vast world, yet also shown the way to the player. You could explore things around, but you also had clear goals. The living world was merely the icing on the cake, but that's what made the game great IMO.

I never really got into Morrowind, because yes, you start out in this swampy town, you losely hear about that other place where something is happening, and that's it. Here, exploring the vast world is the main game, and the plot is the icing on the cake. They kind of got it backward.

As for WoW, yes, whether you like MMO's or not, whether you think WoW is retard or not, it's probably one of the best RPG I've ever played (though obviously, the fact it's a MMO made it impossible to have choices to be made). Huge world, lots of stuff to explore, funny easter eggs, but also quite story-driven. Too bad it can't be played in solo ;)

[a completely inoffensive name]

I think RPG's have always been getting better. I might be overcompensating the nostalgia bias that most people seem to have about anything they played as young kid back in the 80s and 90s. In that case TinCow is probably right, and I am a dumbass who needs to start playing some 90s RPG's to see what's what.

[Azathoth]

I think RPG's have always been getting better. I might be overcompensating the nostalgia bias that most people seem to have about anything they played as young kid back in the 80s and 90s. In that case TinCow is probably right, and I am a dumbass who needs to start playing some 90s RPG's to see what's what.

It's true. Most of the stuff before the mid-90s just isn't worth playing.

This sort of nostalgia-superiority complex becomes endemic the older you get.

The music kids listen to nowadays is trash, the 80s were so much better.

What kind of crap is on TV all the time? It was much better when there were only 5 channels or Gummi Bears, Voltron, and He-man are all way better than Spongebob or whatever.

All movies nowadays are just schemes to make a quick buck off stupid moviegoers. When I was younger, they put out real classics.


See, we'll become bitter and close-minded ourselves. It's already starting.

[Lemur]

Is anybody else bothered by the concept and practice of "hit points"? Even back in the days of tabletop D&D, this always struck me as the single-most irritating, unrealistic element. And yes, in a world of wizards with freezie/burnie spells, I still find hit points the single silliest thing.

[TinCow]

It's true. Most of the stuff before the mid-90s just isn't worth playing.

This sort of nostalgia-superiority complex becomes endemic the older you get.

I wouldn't say that at all. Certainly nostalgia makes us judge old favorites by lower standards than we impose on modern games, however that doesn't make the older games bad. Just because early films generally had far more primitive special effects, cinematography, acting, and even storylines, does not make old classics not worth watching. Casablanca and Citizen Kane are still worth viewing, even though they're unimpressive by modern standards. The same is true for games.

The key, IMO, is to judge a game by the standards of the time. Sure, there are some games that are so obsolete that simply playing them can be difficult because of our reliance upon the mouse and other such interface methods. The King's Quest games were brilliant when they first came out, but there's no way I would currently enjoy sitting around trying to figure out the right keyword to type to just open a door or use an item. There are a lot of even old games that don't have limitations like that.

I certainly think that you can find plenty of stuff that is fun to play even going back to around 1990. Computer power and game development were sufficiently advanced to allow early 1990s games to be at least recognizable and understandable by modern standards. Ultima VII is a good example. It was released in 1992 and is a DOS game. However, it uses an isometric viewpoint, is entirely mouse-driven, and offers a large open-world to explore where pretty much every object you see can be picked up and used. It's also very challenging and has a play time that's best measure in the hundreds of hours. It's not alone either. The SSI gold box games have a superb tactical combat interface that makes for fun and very challenging gameplay. While the graphics are extraordinarily primitive by modern standards, I guarantee you'd get a huge amount of entertainment value out of them due to their length and difficulty. The first gold box game (Pool of Radiance) came out in 1988. That's a 21 year old game, which is older than a lot of people currently on this forum, but it would still hold up on entertainment value if you could look past the obsolete graphics and interface.

Considering you can get most of the games from the early 1990s and before for free these days, they're a pretty good way to have fun cheaply. I would actually think that things like the SSI gold box games would sell decently well if ported to a modern platform like the iPhone (which could run them easily).

Is anybody else bothered by the concept and practice of "hit points"? Even back in the days of tabletop D&D, this always struck me as the single-most irritating, unrealistic element. And yes, in a world of wizards with freezie/burnie spells, I still find hit points the single silliest thing.

If there's a better option, I haven't seen it. Measurement of health in numerical increments is pretty much standard in all games, regardless of genre. Modern games display health with a bar instead of a number, but it's just a UI change... the number is still what drives it. I think this is an inherent limitation of gaming, simply because representing health in a realistic manner isn't conducive to fun. In the real world, if you get shot once in the hand, you're probably out of the fight and will take weeks or months to heal properly. Not exactly entertainment material. Even STALKER turned a lot of people off with its slightly more realistic health system, and all it really did was require a player to bandage himself after being shot to stop the bleeding. If stopping your own bleeding is too extreme for a lot of players, I doubt whether further steps towards health realism would be successful.

[caravel]

I haven't played much RPG after Baldurs Gate 2. I recently played through NWN and was quite impessed, but it lacks a lot of depth and is very dumbed down. I hated that fact that you can walk into a home and loot it in front of the owner and not even see your alignment affected or get chased off by the local law enforcement. I have NWN2 now as well but I haven't installed/played it yet as I'm trying to get hold of the two expansions first. Planescape Torment and Baldurs Gate 2 were just better designed, with more depth and better dialogue/plots etc than NWN IMHO. NWN had predictable, linear areas and obvious and often irritating puzzles.

I could never get into Morrowind - for me the 'walking about' is too time consuming and after walking, walking, clicking through the nonsense dialogue and dancing around trying to stab a rat to death - and getting killed for my trouble, I gave up. It's based on the same engine as used in those Tom Clancy games as far as I can tell (?) and I was never a big fan of that anyway.

So really, I'm probably in the "whinging old sods continually harking back to the old days" camp.

[frogbeastegg]

The template. That is, all at once, the greatest problem with the genre, the biggest limitation, the biggest dinosaur wandering planet RPG. Or in my humble opinion it is. Not every game suffers from template syndrome; many do.

You start out humble and then the world goes insane and suddenly you are running for your life/pursuing vengeance. You meet assorted helpful characters and chase after the villain/person you need to rescue. After some hours there is a twist in which the plot grows wider by revealing a larger threat to the world/twist about your character's past. You then charge about some more to tidy that up, until you meet and the main villain and fight him. Either you win and it turns out there's another villain, or you lose and have to do an escape from prison sequence. Then you resume charging about until you reach the finale and final battle. End game, thanks for saving the world.

Western RPG or JRPG, open world or tightly scripted, it's the same thing. Some hide it better than others, some add new material to dilute the old, and some tell it well enough that it's enjoyable again. Many don't; I have this feeling of deja vu a lot when playing RPGs and it's souring the flavour.

EDIT: missed off the final part which explained why it's such a problem! The plot is the framework the game is built around, and if the framework is old then the rest can't feel new or surprising. A new plotline would place different demands on the gameplay and game world, and would provoke something a bit different. It's hard to be inventive when you're rehashing the same old. We've got the same general gameplay and the same general plot, and the two feed and support each other like that picture of two snakes both eating the each other's tails.

[econ21]

I haven't played much RPG after Baldurs Gate 2. I recently played through NWN and was quite impessed, but it lacks a lot of depth and is very dumbed down. I hated that fact that you can walk into a home and loot it in front of the owner and not even see your alignment affected or get chased off by the local law enforcement.

The official NWN campaign did lack depth and was dumbed down, when compared to BG2 (well, most things are). But I think the engine - with its editor - was capable of dealing with issues like looting affecting law enforcement and alignment. As with BG1, I think Bioware did not do everything it could with the first game using an original engine. (That's a common pattern with computer games, where sequels - unlike those for movies - are usually superior to the originals.) The two expansions were better and there are some great user made modules that almost match BG2. I really liked the Shadowcatcher/Dreamlands series, which was so good, Bioware gave the creator, Adam Miller, a job. It was fascinating watch the modder learn his craft with ever more sophisticated modules until he became a virtuoso. By the end, he even got you playing space invaders on the NWN engine, which was frankly mind-boggling. Nonetheless, I confess, I did still find NWN rather soulless and too generically "modular" to really grab me.

Have you tried the Kotor games and Vampire Bloodlines? Those are titles that I would put up there with BG2 and the Fallouts. They do lack somewhat in vastness, as Meneldil says, but to be honest, they are long enough. I think they are games which build on the elements in BG2 that I loved (the characterful NPCs, cinematic main story and interesting sidequests).

The template. That is, all at once, the greatest problem with the genre, the biggest limitation, the biggest dinosaur wandering planet RPG. Or in my humble opinion it is.

You have a point. The opening cartoon for the "noob comic" echoes it nicely (Meneldil, as an ex-WoW player, might enjoy later cartoons in the series too - I did).

http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=1

[Lemur]

I think [hit points are] an inherent limitation of gaming, simply because representing health in a realistic manner isn't conducive to fun. [...] Even STALKER turned a lot of people off with its slightly more realistic health system, and all it really did was require a player to bandage himself after being shot to stop the bleeding. If stopping your own bleeding is too extreme for a lot of players, I doubt whether further steps towards health realism would be successful.

Then I must have been part of the fractionate minority that liked the STALKER system. You want to avoid bullets? Then put on armor to soften the blow or duck behind a wall. Much more satisfying, and less silly to boot.

Down with hit points! There has to be a better way to represent combat toughness. Face it, hit points are the prime way things get silly in an RPG. One day you're having trouble killing rats, the next you're going toe-to-toe with archdemons and dragons. Such foolishness. This is why high-level D&D campaigns became exercises in the absurd—your 25th-level mage wandering about the seventh circle of hell, zapping down fire giants and whatnot.

One of the best things about BG1 was that you started at 1st level, and faced typical 1st level problems. No uber-hammer-of-instant-death-smiting, just a 1st level fighter or thief or whatever trying to wrestle with orcs. God bless.

[Beskar]

A thing about a very good RPG is that if you played it with immortality mode, it would still be fun.

[Ja'chyra]

A good RPG has got to be open in my opinion, it shouldn't drive you down onr route or stop you going backwards if you so choose.

[Beskar]

A good RPG has got to be open in my opinion, it shouldn't drive you down onr route or stop you going backwards if you so choose.

I know some one who really hated Dragon Age for being too open. The fact they had to kill the only healer in the game ruined it for them and they used the "how was I susposed to know that happened, I wanted to see the options!"

[Ja'chyra]

I know some one who really hated Dragon Age for being too open. The fact they had to kill the only healer in the game ruined it for them and they used the "how was I susposed to know that happened, I wanted to see the options!"

That's why I would say dragon ages isn't an RPG, you shouldn't have to do anything.

[Gregoshi]

...There has to be a better way to represent combat toughness. Face it, hit points are the prime way things get silly in an RPG. One day you're having trouble killing rats, the next you're going toe-to-toe with archdemons and dragons...

Lemur, you are looking at hit points wrong. It is not a measure of physical damage in the case of our hero (us). It is a measure of combat skill and endurance. When you are "hit", it indicate a blow of potential serverity or lethality. However, your combat skill provides you with means of avoiding the fatal blow by a side step or a body twist to turn it into a glancing blow, or even your armor withstanding the blow. Any physical damage is minor - a nick, a bruise, etc. The "damage" to your hit points is a wearing down of your endurance/skill. The more "damage" you take, the more skill you need to exert to defend yourself. Once you receive the death blow, you are weary and no longer capable of avoiding a killing stroke. This explains why a 1st level character has trouble with rats while the 20th level character is going toe-to-toe with demons and dragons - a fatal blow is the same for both but the 20th level character has the skills to avoid that blow for a longer period of time. Note that for some creatures (perhaps giants, dragons, etc), hit points may indeed be looked at as simply the amount of physical damage the creature can sustain, but for our characters, it represents something different.

I agree with froggy's comment about the template: "I have to save the world? Again!?" The RPG makers need to put an effort into finding other things to make the adventures worth while. In the Conan stories (books!), his early years were motivated by fame and fortune and there were some great stories in those pursuits. Think about Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones finding amazing treasures - how cool would finding something like the Ark be as a final payoff for completing an adventure instead of merely saving the world for the umpteenth time? Or slaying the dragon at the end and as a denouement being able to sort through the dragon's treasure horde (as a mini game of sorts?) to find out what incredible items are hidden in the mound of gold. One of the nice things about Oblivion is that you don't have to save the world. You can pursue good or evil, fame or infamy. You can seek to be the head of one or more of the guilds and so on. Obviously, breaking the template is easier said than done, but it can be done. I've never played it but what I've heard of it, Planescape seems to be a game that breaks the mold and it is highly regarded by those who've played it. I'd like to see more games like that (I think).

I think I'm done now......yes, I am.

[Azathoth]

I'm fine with the Hero's Journey and linear gameplay, as long as it's done well.

[a completely inoffensive name]

RPG=role playing game. I get sick of the hero for some reason being the only role we can play as.

[Azathoth]

RPG=role playing game. I get sick of the hero for some reason being the only role we can play as.

Well, you are playing the role of the hero.

[Lemur]

Lemur, you are looking at hit points wrong. It is not a measure of physical damage in the case of our hero (us). It is a measure of combat skill and endurance.

Oh, I've heard this argument before, and it still feels like a cop-out. It tells me that the game mechanics are incapable of representing the skill and endurance of the hero, and instead offer an arbitrary number to stand in for all of that interesting stuff.

No buying it. Hit points are a cop-out, a holdover from D&D, a reality-breaking built-in cheat and they should be done away with. Don't worry, no designer is going to listen to me, I'm just going to be in the corner eating a bowl of Grumpy Old Man Flakes.

[econ21]

If one tries to think about realism, hit points are unsatisfactory, but in gameplay terms, I like them. They allow you to face greater challenges as you level up and they make damage incremental rather than spikey, so that you don't die (or get crippled) too abruptly, but can flee if things go pear shaped. Yes, I know some people like games with "one hit, one kill", crippling wounds and fights you die almost immediately on walking into (e.g. a Morrowind sewer encounter at low level). However, I find them intensively frustrating and make the experience very gamey as, let's face it, you are just going to hit reload and nothing is more immersion breaking than that.

Of the alternatives, I find the "get better gear" solution unsatisfactory. Gear - even more than the human body - is constrained by physics. A bloke in full plate is in trouble against even two opponents who grapple him. I don't know enough about modern armour, but some of the weapon upgrades in Stalker seemed patently unrealistic (e.g. NATO assault rifles being massively more lethal than a basic AK74). Yes, you could make the armour magical but I prefer levelling up my character's attributes than his gear. Saying my character is harder to kill because he is experienced rests better with me than saying it is because he bought uber jewellery on the auction house (MMO players will know what I am talking about). I think the DnD/D20 system balances the loot and gear side well, so that a "mere" +1 upgrade is a big deal.

[caravel]

The official NWN campaign did lack depth and was dumbed down, when compared to BG2 (well, most things are). But I think the engine - with its editor - was capable of dealing with issues like looting affecting law enforcement and alignment. As with BG1, I think Bioware did not do everything it could with the first game using an original engine. (That's a common pattern with computer games, where sequels - unlike those for movies - are usually superior to the originals.) The two expansions were better...

I would disagree as regards the NWN expansions. I did like SoU, but it was HotU it was a bit too short and simplistic - overall I preferred most aspects of the first game. SoU started out well early in the game with looting affecting your alignment for something like the first module, after that it was abandoned and back to the same old "walk into house and loot from under their noses" routine. But there is none of the depth of BG/BG2, i.e. coming back at night when the blacksmith is closed to loot the place.

HotU was pretty poor IMHO. Lots of irritating puzzles and a poor plot. It was just a dungeon crawl and some classes are effectively blocked from defeating the final enemy. The underdark area was barren and patheticly under populated. The main town itself (can't remember the name) was devoid of any side quests or interesting characters. You have the three dungeon crawls of undead, illithid and beholders to plough through and the optional 2 islands of golems and the winged elves. It only gets remotely interesting and promising after you're killed and sent to the hells (My PS:T nostalgia surfaced) - but that also turns into an idiotic platformy puzzle-fest. While the original NWN was barren of useful pick up items, HotU was absolutely loaded with various weapons and armour. I think some of this is due to level, but the amount of "quality goods" that could be found was ridiculous and you spend vast amounts of time just carting stuff back to a trader and selling it off. This is what ruins a lot of RPGs in my opinion.

Technically the expansions improved over the first game, but in terms of the actual plot etc they were not up to the same standard. The henchmen bugs were still there however and especially in HotU the 2nd henchman is severely bugged and often won't attack/get involved, gets stuck or keeps vanishing altogether.

The worst thing about NWN on the whole was the lack of the old BG party system of six characters that you have almost total control over. The AI in NWN was simply not good enough to have AI characters that "do their own thing". Also it was extremely annoying not having a thief with you and having to bash or destroy every chest. That was annoying in itself as most chests were full of 1 coin or a few arrows. I felt like I was in an old FPS style crate smashing game. The earlier games had a system where you simply forced the lock (based on a strength/skill check or whatever) and that's it - you didn't have to smash the entire steel band reinforced, locked and trapped crate/box to smithereens to get 4 stones for your sling...

I still prefer PS:T above any other RPGs I've yet played. It's a shame that a new PS:T game isn't made as it was much better than the usual "buy the best arms and armour and kill everything that moves" plot of the newer games.

[miotas]

I quite liked the health system in ghost recon AWF. It's an FPS I know*, but it's still a good example of a well made health system, you could take one or two of minor wounds to the body and still get patched up, but more than that, or just one to the head and you're dead.



*Although according to this definition, just about every game I've ever played is an RPG

Well, you are playing the role of the hero.

[Kekvit Irae]

Is anybody else bothered by the concept and practice of "hit points"? Even back in the days of tabletop D&D, this always struck me as the single-most irritating, unrealistic element. And yes, in a world of wizards with freezie/burnie spells, I still find hit points the single silliest thing.

Might I direct you toward the text-based MMORPG DragonRealms? It has 'vitality', which is the game's form of hit points, but it really represents how much blood you have in your body. The more bleeding wounds you take, the more vitality is lost over time. Vitality isn't the only thing that can kill you, however. A big gaping hole in your chest that is cauterized is just as fatal as a torn jugular. Needless to say, the Empath Guild (healers) is the most popular hangout for adventurers.

I wish game companies made a modern RPG with that form of healing/combat system. Nowadays, you can just run up to a pack of werewolves and let them wail on you, so long as you have the hitpoints to spare. But with that wound system, a single well-placed hit would spell disaster and death if there wasn't any available healer nearby.