ampersandrew@lemmy.world
on 06 Mar 22:45
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With its nuanced characters, wonderfully layered world, and incredible depth of interactions, it was natural to feel the game had set a new bar for the whole genre—but it was pointed out that declaring it the new standard was unreasonable and unsustainable given how few other developers could possibly rise to meet it.
You could make a game a third of the size of BG3, and it would still be excellent value for BG3’s asking price. And no, you shouldn’t attempt to make a competitor with BG3 on your first try. Nor should you try to make a competitor to Elden Ring on your first try; FromSoft had been making those games for the better part of 15 years, building and iterating on what came before. I do think more RPG developers should strive to follow the systems-driven approach that Larian has and be cognizant of what it is that we all like about BG3, but it can be sustainable if you don’t try to hit a home run on the first pitch.
ICastFist@programming.dev
on 07 Mar 15:26
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FromSoft had been making those games for the better part of 15 years, building and iterating on what came before.
Longer, if we really want to get pedantic. King’s Field, the game and series that is now the spiritual predecessor to the Souls genre, is from 1994, so we could probably say they have been refining their own flavor of action RPG for over 30 years now.
owenfromcanada@lemmy.world
on 06 Mar 22:45
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This shouldn’t surprise anyone. When you look through the classics, they’re not “typical”. Hell, one of the most iconic games involves a plumber fighting a punk-rock turtle to save a princess, with a variety of mushrooms both helping and hindering.
rollmagma@lemmy.world
on 06 Mar 22:53
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Morrowind: An oral history on Polygon is a wonderful read.
All the little stories Kirkbride tells are great. My favourite is him designing progressively weird shit to dupe Howard with. He’d be like “Hey Todd, can we put this in the game?” and after he knowingly got knocked back he’d present him something more palatable.
Yeah, I’ve heard of writers on shows like the Animaniacs doing it, insisting heavily on a more outrageous joke having to go in knowing it’ll get knocked back as a Trojan horse to slip the real jokes they want in.
Lol if it makes you feel better I was going to say Buffalo originally
SmoothOperator@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 07:43
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Indeed, as the article writes
Even Skyrim—certainly a weird, ambitious, and janky RPG in its own right—refined and streamlined the formula set by Morrowind and Oblivion, rather than expanding on their eccentricities, and that trend only continued in the studio’s following games.
I find it bizarre that people think Starfield isn’t “weird and ambitious”. Starfield is absolutely weird and ambitious, that’s why people didn’t like it, it tried to do something new and that something new turned out to not be fun.
SleepNotRequired@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 12:08
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I disagree, if anything I think Starfield was Bethesda not going far enough.
They created a new setting and added a couple of new mechanics, but they cradled it in the same tired formula that they have been doing for decades.
I had hoped that since it was a new IP, this would be the moment they would take a chance and try something new. Try a new approach to quest design and world building, don’t just make the game bigger but make the experience in it more varied with more interesting interactions. Instead it felt like new coat of paint on an old house and when they got called out on it, they became defensive.
I broke my heart when they said the lesson they learned was to stick to the same formula and when they tried to do it with Shattered Space, people hated it even more.
I hate to say it but it seems like Bethesda already peaked.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world
on 06 Mar 23:43
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I have. I don’t know which options you’re referring to. Materia selection? I guess, but there are fewer permutations of those than there are spells/feats/stats in D&D 5e, and that’s before we even get to all the stuff that makes BG3 stand out, like its emergent design. FF7 is a great game, but it is not emergent, and emergent design will nearly always be deeper than the finite stuff.
There are challenge runners who’ve beaten the entire game with only salami for weapons. Oil puddles are just a small part of it. There was a part in act 3 where I was denied entry to a place by failing a speech check. I could have possibly brute forced my way in and murdered everyone, but instead I found a back door that was three stories up on a balcony, cast flight on my rogue, and had him stealth in to achieve the objective. That’s emergent design. Solutions to problems that weren’t explicitly programmed in but work because the rules are loose and can be applied intuitively. There’s a part in the game where you have to cross a bridge blocked off by some high level enemies, and there are a ton of ways to get across the bridge that I know of, several of which the developers didn’t intend for, and probably dozens more that I’ve never even seen before, because the game just lets you run loose with its systems.
Can you give some examples of games that give more freedom than that? Because as the other person said, ff7 is not one of those. And I too am curious because I love those kinds of games. And while owlcat’s pathfinder games are great, they’re also not a viable answer, since you’ve mentioned them.
Fallout. Tyranny. Disco Elysium. Wastland. Ultima. New Vegas. Deus Ex. Outward. Vampire the Masquerade. Any Owlcat game (yes they are a valid answer). Kingdom Come.
They don’t seem interested in detailing why they feel that way. They’re just going to give BG3 backhanded compliments and list games they feel are better without explaining anything. And you know, I’ve played a number of those games too. They aren’t deeper RPGs, because being deeper than BG3 is a high bar to clear.
Yup. I’m fine with bg3 being considered a shit game. That’s an opinion and everyone can not like it. But it’s silly to label it something that it’s not. Something that’s more or less measurable . Like pretending the sky is green or something. Makes no sense. Don’t like the characters? Fine. Don’t like the plot, writing, etc? Fine. But don’t tell me it’s shallow when it has so many different ways to approach everything and so many things you can do differently.
BG3 is the same as any of the other games previously. A D&D game with an amazing DM. Immersive story and characters, great system at the foundation, and excellent gameplay to channel the story and system through.
I think BG3 spent most of their time saying no to dull or shallow ideas, rather than reinventing the wheel. And of course it worked incredibly.
your comparison to FF7 isn’t really accurate as they’re two different types of RPGs
and CRPGs are known for being far more fleshed out than any jrpg, so I’m curious to hear your reasons for saying so. considering FF7 doesn’t even allow you to make your own character to roleplay.
BG3, while very fun, is a pretty shallow game. Obviously that’s not a popular opinion, but it’s unfortunately true. There are far more fleshed out CRPGs out there.
i think you possibly are confusing BG3 for another game. nobody would make a statement like that unless they either hadn’t played it or were trying to troll.
I generally agree with his statement, bg3 is very simple in terms of character building and has shallow exploration/questing (particularly after act 1). But then again, that's the case for most AAA games out there - they are made in a way that anyone can play them to the end.
You all keep throwing these big accusations around without actually giving any alternatives for those of us that actually want to play these deeper more complex games that we’ve somehow never heard of. Why is that? Give us some games to play, please!
The op did give an alternative, I can't speak much for it however.
Baldur's gate 3 barely has any character building after picking a class at the start. It really doesn't feel you're building a character so much as following a template. And worse, the classes are all very vanilla. Pathfinder wotr for example has much better character building, the mythic classes add a ton of depth and interesting interlacing.
The big problem about exploration in bg3 is that there's just not much to do. Most dungeons are like a handful of rooms and that's that. You go in, you talk to a few people, you do 1 combat and rarely 2 and go out. There's no sprawling or sense of discovery. I'll recommend Underrail for exploration.
I see. We just have different opinions on what RPGs should be and that’s okay. I prefer a deep lake to a shallow ocean, so to say. I’ll take bg3, disco Elysium or mass effect over Skyrim any day of the week.
I’ve still got 100+ hours in games like that as well… they’re just not as fun or memorable to me and I often end up bored before the end. Had to force myself to ignore a bunch of the map in order to finish Witcher 3 and kingdom come, for example.
Gothic 2 is like the sweet spot, imo. Large enough that you don’t feel confined, but not that large that you get bored doing the same stuff over and over again. And while I did say that KC:D had me bored with exploration by the end, I didn’t feel bad about skipping parts of it like I did in other games because there the size of the map is just for realism and it’s not actually filled with meaningless stuff.
As for character building, I just play path of exile for that. I play RPGs for the stories. If it can have both, great, but I’m not gonna complain about build diversity in a game that I’m not gonna play more than once or twice anyway.
I'll take bg3, disco Elysium or mass effect over Skyrim any day of the week.
I too. That doesn't mean bg3 is perfect by any stretch, it's the epitome of a theme park crpg, and quite frankly your shallow ocean analogy too. One encounter with harpies, one encounter with owlbears, one encounter with fungi, one random dragon tossed in... Everything starts and ends in a flash.
Never said it was perfect. I’m just saying that op claiming it’s shallow is wrong. At least not more shallow than any other rpg out there. And at least by my definition. And I think other people’s too, because as of right now, they’re at -16.
Just because it doesn’t have a huge map with a 1000 pointless quests and bandit camps that add nothing to the game doesn’t mean it’s shallow. The biggest decision a game like fallout ever gave us was the decision to nuke a town. Beyond that, it was just a kill this guy or convince him to run away. Not sure how that’s deep but whatever.
You really shouldn't base your opinion on how other people perceive it, we're in a bg3 thread, most people here see it positively - so do i for that matter, but any criticism here is gonna be met adversarially. It's always weird interacting with a fanbase when 80% of ppl that started bg3 never finished it, most ppl here never really got the full experience.
a huge map with a 1000 pointless quests
Act 3 in bg3 is exactly that though. The game has huge pacing issues. The whole tadpole stuff goes completely limp halfway through act 1. Companions interactions die off after act 1. Act 2 is full of rewrites and undercooked content. The emperor was obviously added very late in game development and the story twist as a result is cheap as hell. There's no bad guy path - most of the evil interactions are killing off people and effectively locking yourself out of content. I could go on...
I’m talking about the definition of the words “deep” and “shallow”, here. Nobody said bg3 was the best or the worst game. Just that it’s shallow. And most people agree that it’s not.
And yes, there’s issues, but none of the ones you’ve brought up make it a shallow game. And honestly, outside of act 3, and more specifically the ending, I haven’t noticed any of the stuff you’re talking about.
And what game gives you a more “evil” path than the one where you help the goblins kill a bunch of druids and refugees and get minthara as a companion. You can convince gale to sacrifice himself and blow up the whole party just for lulz. You can become an assassin of bhaal. You can get shadowheart to and astarion to become evil too, since those are choices as well. All the dark urge stuff, there’s the kid in the druid grove that stole the idol which you can either save or let the mean druid bitch kill her. You can choose to either save or destroy the last light inn in act 2, bunch of people will die there as well.
Remember scratch? You can return him to his abusive owner. You can kill karlach.
You can take over the netherbrain and use the absolute’s army to conquer the world, you can wipe out Baldur gate’s citizens memory and rule over them or you can make them kill each other. Or you can become a mind flayer and get everyone in BG to do the same and make them serve you
I could go on. But you’ve obviously made up your mind and I’m probably just wasting my time. We’re not arguing opinions here, we’re arguing facts. And apparently, for some people, fallout and kingdom come are deeper games even tho your second playthrough will be 90% the same and you only have like 4-5 meaningful decisions to make that only amount to whether you kill or not some guy and whether you side with some guy or another and then you get an either sad or happy or angry or neutral prologue at the end.
Is bg3 he deepest game ever? No, but it’s not shallow either. In most RPGs, 1 playthrough or 2 are enough to see everything. Or better yet, 1 playthrough plus a 10 minute YouTube video or one wiki page that explains it in a few lines.
Only other game where the my second playthrough was more different than the first one was disco Elysium and even that wasn’t like a whole other game or anything.
I'm talking about the definition of the words "deep" and "shallow", here.
Giving you choices does not add depth, it substracts it, the developers have to write twice as much content that you won't see, and because they have to account for each choice the story is much stricter in how it can evolve. Choices and replayability are opposites to story depth.
Anyhow, my argument was more about the fact that they don't delve beyond the surface of things much, even companions barely have a single questline each. It's very much a theme park crpg, everything has to be short lived and interesting lest they bore the audience.
See, we’ve come full circle back to my previous argument that we’re simply disagreeing on the definition of the word deep. For me, a deep game is a game where there’s many choices. For you, that’s a game with a lot of detail to every bit.
Most people, in my experience, agree with my definition.
What makes deus ex deep? The amount of choices you have. Your choices don’t change the plot. The only thing you change is how you finish the game. You still end up in the same place.
Think of it this way: there’s a slider for choices and one for story detail and length.
Which one is the deeper game, the one with no choices but with a long and detailed story? Like a really long walking simulator, for example.
Or a game with 10 levels that you can approach in 10 different ways each? Sort of like a hitman game or something?
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
on 06 Mar 23:02
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The joke of these games is that they aren’t notably more weird than titles Bethesda and Bioware were famous for turning out. Hard to get more weird than Fallout’s more esoteric vaults or Morrowind’s bizarre cults and exotic cultures.
BG3/KC:D have been, if anything, a direct successors to the old classics. They’re faithfully propagating the fundamental ideas these old titles represented in a way the new studios are unable to reproduce.
Also, honorable mention to the poor bastards who released Disco Elysium and then got their studio stripped out from underneath them by their financiers. Absolute gem of a game and you should feel free to pirate it without a twinge of guilt.
There are lots of things to physically fight back over, but video games ain’t one of them.
QuantumSparkles@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Mar 01:49
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I’m not talking about video games I’m talking ruining someone’s life and stealing their intellectual property, the fucking performative humiliation he put those guys through. You think a rich CEO who would fuck people over that hard is really redeemable?
Edit: But no, you’re right that he shouldn’t be murdered, he doesn’t necessarily have blood on his hands like a healthcare CEO. He should simply be torn from his home and have all of his property and assets liquidated and distributed as compensation
I am sensing a lot of anger here and given the current state of the world it just seems so misplaced. Like dude, there is really shit going on with real villains and real people siffering, maybe direct that anger there.
QuantumSparkles@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Mar 03:05
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Why the fuck would you think it’s not? There’s a lot of goddamn villains in the world, an entire ecosystem of cruelty where people abuse those who they think are below them because of unchecked wealth and power, and people get personally fucked by individuals of that ecosystem every day. Just because there are bigger fish doesn’t mean small fish are exempt. Don’t presume that a frustration with a lesser evil means a blind eye to the greater ones
“Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all!”
Greedy CEOs, MAGA supporters, Islamists, Nazis, Tankies, all the same. If all of those people stopped existing tomorrow, then the world would undoubtably be a better place. I’m ready to die on that hill!
But is it even evil? Like there were contracts involved with terms and conditions. Its not like some guy with a handle bar mustash just swiped the IP and walked away. Someone agreed to the contract that resulted in the loss of their company/IP and if they didn’t read it or consult with legal lawyer who’s bad guy?
Yes, yes it is! On what world would stealing someone’s intellectual work and booting them out of their own company for the sole purpose to keep all of the money for yourself not be evil?
Funnily enough, making people sign unfair contracts is literally the most devilish thing ever. It’s the one thing demons and devils do in pretty much every interpretation they appear in.
This is why we need more people like Luigi!
help me understand then, because if its a bad contract you don’t have to agree to it. so in what way are these people forced to sign contracts, and what are these terms and conditions that let people steal IP?
Not everyone is literate in contract law, so most people won’t notice these kinds of hidden clauses that allow this. In this case it was a combination of signing over the IP to the developing company which they coowned. because that’s pretty standard procedure. Together with the investors managing to get a majority share of the company and forcing the original devs out by vote.
Just one of the reasons why smart people just license out their IPs. This way no one can take it from you. But again, you have to know quite a bit about contract law to know how this works.
So what yoy are saying is, if they had gotten a lawyer and done some research they could have avoided this issue. Now compare this level of injustice to the genocide that has been happening in the middle east, of these two, which deserves my emotional energy?
Aside from the unacceptable violence, the story here is far more complicated than that.
They were just impossible to work with.
I think PeopleMakeGames did a good YouTube video on it if you’ve not seen it.
dinckelman@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 00:34
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What had happened to the people in ZAUM (or what was once that studio), is a tragedy, and a huge shame. I’m not even a cRPG/dnd person, but that game has singlehandedly opened my eyes to a whole new world. It’s easily in my top10 games of all time, and I wish we could get another one eventually
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 07 Mar 13:34
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Morrowind is over 20 years old, and there hasn’t been a FO game with compelling plot lines since New Vegas. You are living in the past.
iheartneopets@lemm.ee
on 07 Mar 13:44
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Kinda the point of the comment
brucethemoose@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 11:44
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They have some good main quest writing, sure, but I feel like the nostalgia glasses factor is big, especially with NV.
It’s also ironic that BG3 is continuation of Bioware’s own franchise.
ultrafastsloth@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 13:07
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Just finished Disco Elysium few days ago, watched the credits roll from start to finish to see all the great people working on it, such a great game…now I am sad for what happened to them, I didnt know that
sundrei@lemmy.sdf.org
on 06 Mar 23:10
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the future of RPGs
Or, hear me out, the future might be 2D pixel-art games made by one or two people in a bedroom – not by critical acclaim or player sentiment, but just by sheer volume, filling up digital storefronts.
emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de
on 07 Mar 15:27
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Im almost done playing crosscode and i was floored away by how engaging and fun it is. I never thought id invest 60+ hours in it so willingly and eagerly. Honestly the best time ive had in gaming in a long time.
sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz
on 07 Mar 04:51
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Kingdom Come Deliverance wasn’t even on my radar and now I’m obsessed. The NPCs are so fucking funny
sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz
on 07 Mar 22:33
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The hours I spent on that FUCKING DICE GAME
50_centavos@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 05:41
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This might be a unpopular view but I think games like Elden Ring or Lies of P are a better RPGs. More action packed, less busy/boring missions. I beat BG3 and had fun for the first half of the game, the last half was a bit of a drag. I tried KCD 1 and couldn’t get into it, going from one end of the map to another doing mindless tasks. It was more of a middle-age simulator. I put ~250 hours into Elden Ring + DLC and I wanted more by the end of it.
Either way, I have some hope for the future of games.
Elden Ring is an RPG, not sure what you’re saying.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Mar 07:59
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Elden Ring better classified as an action RPG, to use an analog its more akin to PnP dungeon crawlers in how it approaches its RPG elements. While say Baldurs Gate 3 is closer to an extended campaign PnP game. They are both RPGs but that’s such a broad grouping so as to be meaningful, an atlatl and a welding torch are both tools but there’s no meaningful overlap.
To quote an old RockPaperShotgun comment about Dark Souls, the best decisions are the ones that you don’t know you’re making. DS definitely has storyline changes depending on where you go first, what you do and who you speak to, which is far more natural than a two-way dialogue option for “blatant RPG decision making”.
The tragedy of Elden Ring is that it’s far too long for that. I’ve played through DS several times and would expect to get it finished in about five hours, so can play through the various plot line resolutions in a long evening of gaming. ER has a variety of ways that the DLC can play out, you say? Best book a fortnight off work so that I can get a hundred hours of gaming in.
50_centavos@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 11:16
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You can complete 90% of everything in one playthrough. Then complete the other parts in NG+ so you’re not completely starting over. I believe you only need 2 great runes to face the end boss.
Well, yes. But I would argue that if you have the skills to defeat eg. the Draconic Sentinel with just two runes, then it’s probably not your first rodeo. Stumbling over all the steps to eg. Varre or Hyettas quests on an unguided playthrough, which require specific things in a certain order in a huge world, are not particularly likely either. Its size works against it in that regard.
For people that really love Dark Souls and have finished it repeatedly, including challenge runs? Five hours is probably taking your time, using rubbish weapons for a laugh. For your first time playing through, hell no - probably more like thirty. The first DS has some unreasonable traps for the unwary - one of the stats is a dead end, many of the weapons scale really badly. Maybe better to start with Scholar or 3, that are better balanced.
freeman@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Mar 08:13
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Its an action game with RPG like stst systems.
knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de
on 07 Mar 12:45
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An RPG without a story and full focus on gameplay, if you like fighting monsters over and over again it sure is great, but otherwise it lacks alot
YungOnions@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 12:04
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If you’re even remotely interested in Warhammer 40k, the Rogue Trader CRPG is excellent
criss_cross@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 14:16
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I love Rogue Trader so much.
I wish more of the game was like act 2. That’s where the game really shines
Ketram@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 07 Mar 15:01
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Owlcat in general, despite their buggy releases, make absolutely ambitious and exciting games that are terrifically well written. Wrath of the Righteous is my favorite CRPG out there, and Rogue Trader is close to that as well.
drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 18:00
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That game was far better then it had any right to be.
Still waiting on an imperial guard focused game though.
Rogue Trader is actually good, but people who eat up medieval fantasy slop like BG3 will probably hate it.
Adulated_Aspersion@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 13:13
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But BioWare games used to be the top tier gaming company standard for excellence. Bethesda used to release amazingly ambitious titles that were unmatched (albeit buggy!).
Greed outweighs the love of games.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 12:08
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When do you think that stopped though?
There’s a lot of love for Skyrim, but I feel like there was already deterioration in the side quest writing, even strictly looking at Oblivion/FO3, not Morrowind.
As for BioWare, even ME3 was starting to show some cracks, even if you set the ending aside. And I loved Mass Effect to death. Heck, I’m even a bigger Andromeda fan than most.
…Point being I think we clung to BioWare/Bethesda a little too hard even when the signs of deoxygenation were there.
Adulated_Aspersion@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 21:34
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Completely agree. BioWare started it’s downward trend when it thought it could cash in on MMORPG billions by creating Star Wars: The Old Republic. Don’t get me wrong, Bioware made awesome games until ~2010. They were bought out by EA in 2007, and that is where we can clearly see that passion was lost. Good games still came out, but they weren’t great.
I will always hold a special spot in my heart for the Elder Scrolls. I’ve played since Daggerfall in the late 90s. I got into Fallout later, but went back and played the originals (except for tactics). A lot of people hate on Skyrim as being janky, but I was there for the original release. Did it have issues? Of course, and it still does. But this was 11 / 11 / 2011 we are talking about. Skyrim was doing things that no one in gaming was doing well, and they told a good story to boot.
The issue that I have with most studios is that they step away from the ideas of furthering or completing a story just because they can’t think of a new gimmic or mechanic to make it hugely profitable. They need those profits to justify the staggering wages paid to the CEO’s. Not to the writers, programmers, or artists.
So Bethesda lost a lot of love when they (like BioWare) attempted to cash in on MMORPGs with Fallout 76.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 21:49
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Funny thing is SWTOR has some great art, heartfelt voice acting and quests, great soundtrack and such, but at the end of the day it’s buried in a grindy.
On the other hand, I tried Fallout 76 (after it was patched up) drunk with friends, and it was boring as heck. The quests were so dull, gameplay so arbitrarily janky and grindy. Drunk! With friends! Do you know how low a bar that is :/
melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Mar 13:45
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I concur; we need more of this new breed of aggressively strange RPG’s, like earthbound/mother, planescape:torment, and morrowind.
ICastFist@programming.dev
on 07 Mar 15:15
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The freedom that Morrowind gives you has never been matched by other Bethesda titles. I think the only path that’s blocked to the player is joining the Sixth House, but at least you can kill Vivec before confronting Dagoth Ur
I can’t speak for Daggerfall’s freedom as I haven’t really delved into it, but I know it has 6 different endings depending on which faction you ally with.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
on 07 Mar 18:57
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None of what you listed is “new”. Also, Morrowind wasn’t actually “strange” in the slightest. Plenty of fantasy RPGs had elements of sci-fi and weird bug shit (see: Wizardry and even Might and Magic) and the “you can screw up the main quest” was similarly common at the time. Planescape I’ll give you.
Which is also true here. BG3 is not “strange”, It is literally the third Baldurs Gate game and continues most of the same themes and concepts. Yeah, it is a whole lot more gay but even that is not out of the ordinary for CRPGs at this point and had been pushed by companies like Larian, Obsidian, and Owlcat. Hell, the Mass Effects and Dragon Ages deserve a LOT of props for how horny and gay they were and normalizing the idea of picking the right dialogue options for a sexy card cutscene (also see CD Projekt Red).
And KCD2 is one of the most bog standard power fantasy games out there.
Like most articles of this variety, this is just a fancy way of saying “people should make good games”
melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Mar 22:09
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none of what you listed is new
yes that’s exactly the point. two of these are from the 90s, one is from like 2001. old enough to have good credit and cheap car insurance. im making fun of the title.
morrowind isn’t really that weird
no, but it blew a lot of people’s minds so i put it on the list.
continues lots of the same themes
citation needed. not that I dislike it, it just feels like the name is tacked on to an otherwise lovely CRPG.
Yeah, it is a whole lot more gay but even that is not out of the ordinary for CRPGs at this point and had been pushed by companies like Larian, Obsidian, and Owlcat. Hell, the Mass Effects and Dragon Ages deserve a LOT of props for how horny and gay they were and normalizing the idea of picking the right dialogue options for a sexy card cutscene (also see CD Projekt Red).
Haven’t played BG3 yet, but I’m interested to read this because I’ve noticed a lot of discussion seems to be about romancing characters, and I don’t remember that being a prominent feature in the first two. That said, I was a kid, so maybe that just went over my head at the time. Or is that something that Larian brought in from their other games?
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
on 08 Mar 15:53
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There were no sex cards, but if memory serves you could “romance” Jaheira (while effectively standing on the still warm corpse of her husband), Aerie (I remember that being kind of fucked but it has been 20 years), Viconia, and one of the boring dudes.
The “romances” weren’t particularly well written but… they honestly aren’t much better these days. We mostly just, as a culture, have moved on from needing everything to be a storybook romance and understanding that sometimes you just need a bang. Which makes “romance” in games a hell of a lot easier.
But also, since BG2 (well, NWN), Bioware have basically made their entire thing “romance options” and so forth. Similar to how Obsidian and Owlcat decided the real culture war was Turn Based versus Real Time With Pause. And Larian realized that we could do all the environmental nonsense that was originally only an option for tabletop games with GMs who didn’t know why you were asking when it last rained.
The Thaumaturge and Clair Obscur both look pretty weird
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml
on 07 Mar 14:46
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Interestingly, Avowed is completely missing from this discussion.
TheLowestStone@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 14:55
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A very fair point, but alas… for better or worse, the bar has indeed been raised, and last month only proved that. February 2025 saw the release of a new RPG from one of the most beloved studios in the genre, Obsidian Entertainment. Avowed is modest by design, but nonetheless it’s polished, accessible, and visually impressive, with a rich story from some of the best writers in the business—and the backing of Microsoft, one of the most influential and well-resourced videogame publishers of all time.
Avowed is fantastic IMO. It’s been handcrafted and feels like a living place as opposed to Starfield which was expansive, siloed and impersonal. As a massive Skyrim and Mass Effect fan it is easily my fave game since BG3, probably even more than it in fact.
stardreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 07 Mar 17:48
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Personally I just want another RtwP CRPG.
I loved PoE1, didn’t care much about PoE2, and will probably care less about Avowed. There’s something magical about a map full of tiles that aren’t revealed immediately compared to a world map that you can immediately tell how much has been explored.
Same thing for BG3. I love Larian (been a Kickstarter backer since the original D:OS days, been playing almost every one of their games on release day since Dragon Commander) and BG3’s a great RPG, but it doesn’t feel like a good BG game. BG2 gave an immediate sense of “I have no idea where to go so I can do whatever I want”. BG3 is always nudging you to uncover the map and clear all the quests.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 12:10
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Personally I just want another RtwP CRPG.
How do you feel about Torment: Tides of Numenera?
turnip@sh.itjust.works
on 07 Mar 14:58
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Should I buy Baldurs Gate 3, its extremely expensive still.
Is it insanely good, like Factorio level polish, or was it just hyped due to recency bias?
castlebravo404@lemmynsfw.com
on 07 Mar 20:27
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Worth the hype IMHO.
drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 21:05
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Worth it. Absolutely, it’s got both great game play and story and more so then any other rpg of its type it feels like your character and the choices you make are actually pretty major. It let’s you be more evil then in almost any other game if you are into that.
I rarely play any new ones to be honest so I’m not sure. CP2077 just feels for me like they didn’t stretch out the main story longer than necessary and put a lot of effort into the world and what’s in it.
Western-style ones, yeah. High-effort side content is CD Projekt’s specialty at this point.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 17:56
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As I’ve grown older and busier, I now prefer shorter games. Even when I intentionally try to play games, I may get 2-3 hours a week most weeks. A 100-hour campaign takes me a year to play through.
Is it one of those “play the whole main story and then focus on the side content” situations or “Save the final mission for later because its a proper ending” situations?
the latter, the main story’s final quest lets you know before you start it that’s it’s a point of no return (though you can also just reload a save from before you do it)
ArtemisimetrA@lemmy.duck.cafe
on 07 Mar 17:53
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I’ve heard people take that approach with Starfield and still be very disappointed. If it’s space you want and are ok with creating your own story, Elite Dangerous is getting a pretty big revival
Its mostly just that I want a Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim with a sci-fi setting. A solid story, lots of side-quests, and a dynamic world that reacts to the player. I’d probably enjoy a modern metropolitan criminal setting as well for an RPG like GTA’s settings but Elder-Scrolls/3D-Fallout gameplay but you never see that at all.
I don’t think it’s a super common opinion, but I really liked Starfield’s main story. That said, it completely fails on the dynamic world front. You might be better off with Cyberpunk for now.
I don’t believe you. That game exists, it’s called Starfield, and it failed specifically because of its sci-fi setting and for no other reason.
Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 07:56
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It failed because it was boring.
It famously had people saying “once you get past the first 12 hours, it gets good” it had nothing to do with the setting. The sci-fi setting was literally what drew people to play it in the first place…
fallout 4 style fake choices and railroading, only one way to complete most quests,
open world" that requires fast travel, completely undercutting exploration
immersion breaking loading screens for literally everything, even following cutscenes which aren’t used for bg loading for some reason
spaceship fantasy that barely makes use of the spaceship, it’s just a toy you can decorate but can’t properly pilot, space combat is horrendously bad even though other games nailed it in the fucking 90s
planet exploration fantasy that breaks planets into tiny chunks even though no man’s sky existed for years
open world fantasy where discovery is undercut by the fact that the same assets are reused over and over. like not even texture and models randomized to have some variation, but entire buildings copied including the placement of objects inside.
classic Bethesda style afraid to lock the player out of anything approach that means you have no choices to make, just get through everything in the order you like … be a cop and a thief and a merchant and a cultist and a garbage man why not
vast space fantasy with a gazillion planets yet you are the center of everything
scifi universe that doesn’t have means of long distance communication for some reason, needing you to go back and forth between planets just to relay messages
i can go on but got bored.
the fact that you claim that the only problem starfield had was it’s scifi setting when massively successful scifi games like cyberpunk, deus ex, half life, nier, mass effect etc exist just proves you know nothing about video games.
and more specifically your seem to have no idea what people want from rpgs if you even consider starfield to be one worth mentioning, let alone an exemplary one.
I’ve not gotten around to trying it yet, I’ve already got like 6-7 games on my plate ATM on various devices. I actually suspect I wont hate it but I hear its pretty meh.
Hopefully Bethesda can turn it around with DLC/updates though. I hear modding is still in its infancy too so maybe we’ll get something in that area down the road too.
Also I figure if I wait hopefully Starfield will get a VR edition (or maybe a mod) and that might be when I really want to jump in.
the difference is cyberpunk has good direction and writing. starfield’s got neither. the problem with cyberpunk wasn’t the core of the game, it was bugs. once they fixed most of those the actual direction and story of the game had a chance to shine through.
starfield’s problem is the exact opposite. it was praised for being less buggy than the average BGS game, which is faint praise, but the problem is that it’s badly designed from the very core. it has bad writing, terrible characters, no direction at all, and no vision. bland, boring and basic. there’s no amount of updates that can fix that. the problems aren’t technical. there’s just no talent there.
PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee
on 07 Mar 19:23
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I’ve had cyberpunk since launch and the only thing that has improved is stability. The game is still a hodgepodge of half baked RPG systems, most of which aren’t even necessary to interact with. No amount of polish can change the fact that it’s a turd underneath.
sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 07 Mar 23:14
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I can tell you haven’t booted the game up recently because they completely redid the perk system and cyberware not too long ago.
CDPR has been atoning for the sin that was their failed launch for years. In my opinion, the game is a good game now.
That was over a year ago and I have. It’s a bandaid on a dumpster.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 11:37
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I found a combat mod completely changed the game for me. By making it brutally damaging instead of so bullet spongy and deleveling it, it simplifies all that crap away. Perks and guns are for play styles, and it lets one enjoy the game instead of worrying about them.
SomethingBurger@jlai.lu
on 07 Mar 19:52
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Yes! BG3 and KC2 devs made amazing games but for some reason decided to have them take place in the most generic, boring medieval/fantasy setting.
I want a pirate RPG, or sci-fi, heck even a hardcore Mario CRPG.
I have no comprehension what this is attempting to imply as I’m not sure who makes what games…
However, I do have some valid input. Kingdom Come Deliverance is the only single player game I’ve played since literally Metal Gear Solid 2…
Zero interest in single player games, yet I got Kingdom Come Deliverance for free so screw it I was bored hopped on got stoned.
By like hour 14 I realized I was playing a movie. With endless paths true freedom. I almost actually played it… I think I made it 40 some hours in and 20 of those hours were unlocking combos and learning them. Killing randoms on the roads etc.
I enjoyed it thoroughly yet, in the end it was still a single player game. All I could consider the entire time playing it was … Imagine if this map had 100 players on it. How epic of an mmoprg this game could make.
No, stop, let us have single player games, with 100-10000 players in an MMORPG you are suddenly diluted and weak, your ability to influence the world and be heroic and become powerful is suddenly dependent on competing for time investment and skill with 100s to 1000s of other people. THATS WHAT I ALREADY DO IN REAL LIFE. If I want to feel mid and not very powerful without putting in a ton of extra work, I’ll go outside. Especially when doing that extra work would actually allow me to spend EVEN LESS TIME on myself in the real world.
TLDR: there are enough MMOs, there are DEFINITELY enough competitive multiplayer games (also PVM/P survival building games) I do not understand people’s obsessions with saying the very small number of great single player games we have ought to be MMOs. Go play ESO or whatever it is you guys like playing.
What we need is an mmo where you can make a difference. What do I mean by that? How would that work?
For start, the “you’re the hero” thing, where 12981891961899 other mother fuckers are in the background doing the same exact thing, or getting the same exact speech as your are, needs to go. Just make me a regular dude that is adventuring. Just like DnD tt.
How do you affect the world then? In DAoC, there were NPC raids on cities. You could go in and kill the leader, then the whole group would disband and run back to their village across the river. There were other similar events like this throughout the world. We need stuff like that. NPCs, or even players if you choose PvP, that affect the world. Instead of staying in one spot and just roaming a set path, they should be attacking the cities that they are mad at or revolting/gathering to revolt against. Make it so they can actually take territory. Take over cities. Assault capital cities. Even just randomly wander on a not set range. What I’d give to play an mmo where I have the chance to be randomly jumped by (level appropriate) NPCs. Even outside of a place they’re normally found.
This adds dynamic change to the world. It’s not a static area. It makes it so that beginner zones are abandoned as soon as most level out of them. You need to make sure NPCs don’t take over the city because you need that flight path/horse route/etc.
We could even have animal infestations. People aren’t killing farmer bill’s rats? They take over the farm and whatever he supplies isn’t available in the local city’s stores.
There are so many things that can be done with NPCs to make the world feel alive and more dynamic. Again, I’m not the hero here. I’m just an adventurer, a normal mercenary, that is trying to keep the enemy in line or the rat population from getting out of control.
kerrigan778@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 19:31
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Less flash, more passionate people allowed to create. Shocker.
BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world
on 07 Mar 21:29
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The article totally misses the big intervening step between Skyrim/old Bioware and the failure of Starfield/Dragon Age: CDProjectRED.
While those studios largely just made “more of the same”, CDPR made Witcher 3 and then Cyberpunk 2077. Both games are way better narrative experiences and pushed RPG forward. Starfield looks very dated in comparison to both, and Dragon Age failed to capture to magic. Baldur’s Gate 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 are successes because they also bring strong narratives and emotional connections to the stories.
Starfield would have been huge if it had been released soon after Skyrim. But now it just looks old fashioned, and I think the “wide as an ocean, as deep as a puddle” analogy is good for Starfield. Meanwhile Witcher 3 - which is 10 years old! - has quests and storylines with choices and emotional impact. BG3 and KC:D2 are heirs to Witcher 3.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 12:02
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People like to write off CP2077, which is such a shame.
…And maybe this makes me a black sheep, but I bounced off Witcher 2/3? I dunno, I just didn’t like the combat and lore, and ended up watching some of the interesting quests on YouTube.
They are literally sequels. 2 and 3. That removes any chance of them being unexpected now doesn’t it you dunce.
Ambitious, sure; if your definition of ambitious is delivering a complete game at release.
Weird? If you think these games are weird I’ll absolutely punish your eyeballs with just some stuff on steam that will leave these two games looking absolutely mainstream.
roguetrick@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 10:09
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This would be a great reply if you didn’t call him a dunce which will likely get your comment deleted.
Elevator7009sAlt@ani.social
on 08 Mar 14:14
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I’ll absolutely punish your eyeballs with just some stuff on steam that will leave these two games looking absolutely mainstream.
Genuinely curious since that sounds interesting. What games are these?
So… Where are all the realistic medieval sandbox RPGs? You know, of the kind set in an actual historical period?
Or… Or… How often has capturing the freedom and complexity of D&D in a videogame been attempted so accurately?
For something to even approach becoming a cliché there’d have to be a lot of that particular something done in exactly that particular way. So please do give a nice long list of games exactly like Kingdom Come Deliverence and Baldur’s Gate 3, because clearly everyone must’ve missed them.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 11:55
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People understandably love to hate Oblivion and Fallout 3, but I feel the side quest writing had heart, like groups of devs got to go wild within their own little dungeons. Their exploitable mechanics were kinda endearing.
…And I didn’t get that from Starfield? I really tried to overlook the nostalgia factor, but all the writing felt… corporate. Gameplay, animation, Bethesda jank without any of the fun. I abandoned it early and tried to see what I was missing on YouTube, but still don’t “get” what people see in that game.
If you want a big walking sandbox in that vein, I feel like No Man’s Sky would scratch the itch far better, no?
Meanwhile, BG3 and KC2 completely floored me. So did Cyberpunk 2077, though I only experienced it patched up and modded. Heck, even ME Andromeda felt more compelling to me.
cuteness@sh.itjust.works
on 08 Mar 14:34
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I got Cyberpunk in December and KCD2 in February. At this point I’m convinced I’ve spoiled the entire RPG genre for myself for the next decade. I can’t imagine playing 2 great games back to back like that again.
variouslegumes@reddthat.com
on 08 Mar 17:00
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Oblivion is my favorite Elder Scrolls. I actually played it again recently and thought it held up pretty well. I’m a sucker for wandering lush bucolic landscapes though.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world
on 08 Mar 17:38
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I’m a sucker for wandering lush bucolic landscapes though.
You should play KC Deliverance 2 if you haven’t. Its forests and rural villages are freaking gorgeous, especially for how “easy” it is to run.
variouslegumes@reddthat.com
on 08 Mar 19:28
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Yes! I’ve played a fair bit of KCD 2. Really enjoying it!
threaded - newest
You could make a game a third of the size of BG3, and it would still be excellent value for BG3’s asking price. And no, you shouldn’t attempt to make a competitor with BG3 on your first try. Nor should you try to make a competitor to Elden Ring on your first try; FromSoft had been making those games for the better part of 15 years, building and iterating on what came before. I do think more RPG developers should strive to follow the systems-driven approach that Larian has and be cognizant of what it is that we all like about BG3, but it can be sustainable if you don’t try to hit a home run on the first pitch.
Longer, if we really want to get pedantic. King’s Field, the game and series that is now the spiritual predecessor to the Souls genre, is from 1994, so we could probably say they have been refining their own flavor of action RPG for over 30 years now.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone. When you look through the classics, they’re not “typical”. Hell, one of the most iconic games involves a plumber fighting a punk-rock turtle to save a princess, with a variety of mushrooms both helping and hindering.
How dare you!
It’s funny and sad knowing that Bethesda once were the company making weird and ambitious RPGs.
Morrowind is one of the weirdest and most ambitious games of that era.
Morrowind was thier hail mary to stay in buisness.
Then they gave the series to Howard and his crew…
It’s like the super bowl champs giving the next decade to the Bears.
Morrowind: An oral history on Polygon is a wonderful read.
All the little stories Kirkbride tells are great. My favourite is him designing progressively weird shit to dupe Howard with. He’d be like “Hey Todd, can we put this in the game?” and after he knowingly got knocked back he’d present him something more palatable.
That’s a classic negotiation technique abusing the psychological anchoring effect.
Yeah, I’ve heard of writers on shows like the Animaniacs doing it, insisting heavily on a more outrageous joke having to go in knowing it’ll get knocked back as a Trojan horse to slip the real jokes they want in.
nowhere is safe 😫
Lol if it makes you feel better I was going to say Buffalo originally
Indeed, as the article writes
Skyrim wasn’t “weird” by any definition I’d use. More like bland.
We’re talking about an article that considers Baldur’s Gate 3 to be weird and ambitious. Words don’t have meanings anymore.
I find it bizarre that people think Starfield isn’t “weird and ambitious”. Starfield is absolutely weird and ambitious, that’s why people didn’t like it, it tried to do something new and that something new turned out to not be fun.
I disagree, if anything I think Starfield was Bethesda not going far enough.
They created a new setting and added a couple of new mechanics, but they cradled it in the same tired formula that they have been doing for decades.
I had hoped that since it was a new IP, this would be the moment they would take a chance and try something new. Try a new approach to quest design and world building, don’t just make the game bigger but make the experience in it more varied with more interesting interactions. Instead it felt like new coat of paint on an old house and when they got called out on it, they became defensive.
I broke my heart when they said the lesson they learned was to stick to the same formula and when they tried to do it with Shattered Space, people hated it even more.
I hate to say it but it seems like Bethesda already peaked.
BG3 isnt even a deep RPG. Im really glad it’s popular, but as an rpg it doesn’t even have half the options final fantasy 7 had.
Kingdom Come is a much richer experience, imo. Even though the options are even fewer on paper.
I’ll just sit over here rocking in place and muttering Owlcat Games over and over
You’re going to have to elaborate on those first two sentences, because that’s a wild thing to say.
Youve never played the original FF 7?
I have. I don’t know which options you’re referring to. Materia selection? I guess, but there are fewer permutations of those than there are spells/feats/stats in D&D 5e, and that’s before we even get to all the stuff that makes BG3 stand out, like its emergent design. FF7 is a great game, but it is not emergent, and emergent design will nearly always be deeper than the finite stuff.
No you’re right. Oil puddles are amazing emergent designs. My bad.
There are challenge runners who’ve beaten the entire game with only salami for weapons. Oil puddles are just a small part of it. There was a part in act 3 where I was denied entry to a place by failing a speech check. I could have possibly brute forced my way in and murdered everyone, but instead I found a back door that was three stories up on a balcony, cast flight on my rogue, and had him stealth in to achieve the objective. That’s emergent design. Solutions to problems that weren’t explicitly programmed in but work because the rules are loose and can be applied intuitively. There’s a part in the game where you have to cross a bridge blocked off by some high level enemies, and there are a ton of ways to get across the bridge that I know of, several of which the developers didn’t intend for, and probably dozens more that I’ve never even seen before, because the game just lets you run loose with its systems.
That’s depth.
That is very cool, i agree.
There are other games out there that give that amount of freedom. If not more. That’s all I’m saying.
It’s a very pretty game.
I don’t think FF7 is one of those games.
Can you give some examples of games that give more freedom than that? Because as the other person said, ff7 is not one of those. And I too am curious because I love those kinds of games. And while owlcat’s pathfinder games are great, they’re also not a viable answer, since you’ve mentioned them.
Fallout. Tyranny. Disco Elysium. Wastland. Ultima. New Vegas. Deus Ex. Outward. Vampire the Masquerade. Any Owlcat game (yes they are a valid answer). Kingdom Come.
Those are just off the top of my head.
Guess we just have a different definition of deep then if you feel like those games give you more options than bg3.
Lmao!
My thoughts exactly when I read your list of “deeper” games. What exactly can you do in kingdom come that BG doesn’t allow you, for example?
They don’t seem interested in detailing why they feel that way. They’re just going to give BG3 backhanded compliments and list games they feel are better without explaining anything. And you know, I’ve played a number of those games too. They aren’t deeper RPGs, because being deeper than BG3 is a high bar to clear.
Yup. I’m fine with bg3 being considered a shit game. That’s an opinion and everyone can not like it. But it’s silly to label it something that it’s not. Something that’s more or less measurable . Like pretending the sky is green or something. Makes no sense. Don’t like the characters? Fine. Don’t like the plot, writing, etc? Fine. But don’t tell me it’s shallow when it has so many different ways to approach everything and so many things you can do differently.
Dues Ex the famous on rails game, right?
Yeah, you got me. I totally said that.
I’m pretty sure nobody had the option to save Aeris, side with Sephiroth, finish blowing up Shinra before having to change to disc 2, etc
BG3 is the same as any of the other games previously. A D&D game with an amazing DM. Immersive story and characters, great system at the foundation, and excellent gameplay to channel the story and system through.
I think BG3 spent most of their time saying no to dull or shallow ideas, rather than reinventing the wheel. And of course it worked incredibly.
your comparison to FF7 isn’t really accurate as they’re two different types of RPGs
and CRPGs are known for being far more fleshed out than any jrpg, so I’m curious to hear your reasons for saying so. considering FF7 doesn’t even allow you to make your own character to roleplay.
BG3, while very fun, is a pretty shallow game. Obviously that’s not a popular opinion, but it’s unfortunately true. There are far more fleshed out CRPGs out there.
i think you possibly are confusing BG3 for another game. nobody would make a statement like that unless they either hadn’t played it or were trying to troll.
Pretty+cinematic does not mean better. You need to play more crpgs, my friend.
oh, I’d say ive played quite a few, bud. but the advice is appreciated.
enjoy your generic protagonist with a mysterious dark past. seems like a truly unique concept in RPGs! 🙏
Then i recommend playing more games with unique concepts. DnD is like the most generic concept on the planet.
I generally agree with his statement, bg3 is very simple in terms of character building and has shallow exploration/questing (particularly after act 1). But then again, that's the case for most AAA games out there - they are made in a way that anyone can play them to the end.
You all keep throwing these big accusations around without actually giving any alternatives for those of us that actually want to play these deeper more complex games that we’ve somehow never heard of. Why is that? Give us some games to play, please!
The op did give an alternative, I can't speak much for it however.
Baldur's gate 3 barely has any character building after picking a class at the start. It really doesn't feel you're building a character so much as following a template. And worse, the classes are all very vanilla. Pathfinder wotr for example has much better character building, the mythic classes add a ton of depth and interesting interlacing.
The big problem about exploration in bg3 is that there's just not much to do. Most dungeons are like a handful of rooms and that's that. You go in, you talk to a few people, you do 1 combat and rarely 2 and go out. There's no sprawling or sense of discovery. I'll recommend Underrail for exploration.
I see. We just have different opinions on what RPGs should be and that’s okay. I prefer a deep lake to a shallow ocean, so to say. I’ll take bg3, disco Elysium or mass effect over Skyrim any day of the week.
I’ve still got 100+ hours in games like that as well… they’re just not as fun or memorable to me and I often end up bored before the end. Had to force myself to ignore a bunch of the map in order to finish Witcher 3 and kingdom come, for example.
Gothic 2 is like the sweet spot, imo. Large enough that you don’t feel confined, but not that large that you get bored doing the same stuff over and over again. And while I did say that KC:D had me bored with exploration by the end, I didn’t feel bad about skipping parts of it like I did in other games because there the size of the map is just for realism and it’s not actually filled with meaningless stuff.
As for character building, I just play path of exile for that. I play RPGs for the stories. If it can have both, great, but I’m not gonna complain about build diversity in a game that I’m not gonna play more than once or twice anyway.
I too. That doesn't mean bg3 is perfect by any stretch, it's the epitome of a theme park crpg, and quite frankly your shallow ocean analogy too. One encounter with harpies, one encounter with owlbears, one encounter with fungi, one random dragon tossed in... Everything starts and ends in a flash.
Never said it was perfect. I’m just saying that op claiming it’s shallow is wrong. At least not more shallow than any other rpg out there. And at least by my definition. And I think other people’s too, because as of right now, they’re at -16.
Just because it doesn’t have a huge map with a 1000 pointless quests and bandit camps that add nothing to the game doesn’t mean it’s shallow. The biggest decision a game like fallout ever gave us was the decision to nuke a town. Beyond that, it was just a kill this guy or convince him to run away. Not sure how that’s deep but whatever.
You really shouldn't base your opinion on how other people perceive it, we're in a bg3 thread, most people here see it positively - so do i for that matter, but any criticism here is gonna be met adversarially. It's always weird interacting with a fanbase when 80% of ppl that started bg3 never finished it, most ppl here never really got the full experience.
Act 3 in bg3 is exactly that though. The game has huge pacing issues. The whole tadpole stuff goes completely limp halfway through act 1. Companions interactions die off after act 1. Act 2 is full of rewrites and undercooked content. The emperor was obviously added very late in game development and the story twist as a result is cheap as hell. There's no bad guy path - most of the evil interactions are killing off people and effectively locking yourself out of content. I could go on...
I’m talking about the definition of the words “deep” and “shallow”, here. Nobody said bg3 was the best or the worst game. Just that it’s shallow. And most people agree that it’s not.
And yes, there’s issues, but none of the ones you’ve brought up make it a shallow game. And honestly, outside of act 3, and more specifically the ending, I haven’t noticed any of the stuff you’re talking about. And what game gives you a more “evil” path than the one where you help the goblins kill a bunch of druids and refugees and get minthara as a companion. You can convince gale to sacrifice himself and blow up the whole party just for lulz. You can become an assassin of bhaal. You can get shadowheart to and astarion to become evil too, since those are choices as well. All the dark urge stuff, there’s the kid in the druid grove that stole the idol which you can either save or let the mean druid bitch kill her. You can choose to either save or destroy the last light inn in act 2, bunch of people will die there as well. Remember scratch? You can return him to his abusive owner. You can kill karlach.
You can take over the netherbrain and use the absolute’s army to conquer the world, you can wipe out Baldur gate’s citizens memory and rule over them or you can make them kill each other. Or you can become a mind flayer and get everyone in BG to do the same and make them serve you
I could go on. But you’ve obviously made up your mind and I’m probably just wasting my time. We’re not arguing opinions here, we’re arguing facts. And apparently, for some people, fallout and kingdom come are deeper games even tho your second playthrough will be 90% the same and you only have like 4-5 meaningful decisions to make that only amount to whether you kill or not some guy and whether you side with some guy or another and then you get an either sad or happy or angry or neutral prologue at the end.
Is bg3 he deepest game ever? No, but it’s not shallow either. In most RPGs, 1 playthrough or 2 are enough to see everything. Or better yet, 1 playthrough plus a 10 minute YouTube video or one wiki page that explains it in a few lines.
Only other game where the my second playthrough was more different than the first one was disco Elysium and even that wasn’t like a whole other game or anything.
Giving you choices does not add depth, it substracts it, the developers have to write twice as much content that you won't see, and because they have to account for each choice the story is much stricter in how it can evolve. Choices and replayability are opposites to story depth.
Anyhow, my argument was more about the fact that they don't delve beyond the surface of things much, even companions barely have a single questline each. It's very much a theme park crpg, everything has to be short lived and interesting lest they bore the audience.
See, we’ve come full circle back to my previous argument that we’re simply disagreeing on the definition of the word deep. For me, a deep game is a game where there’s many choices. For you, that’s a game with a lot of detail to every bit.
Most people, in my experience, agree with my definition.
What makes deus ex deep? The amount of choices you have. Your choices don’t change the plot. The only thing you change is how you finish the game. You still end up in the same place.
Think of it this way: there’s a slider for choices and one for story detail and length.
Which one is the deeper game, the one with no choices but with a long and detailed story? Like a really long walking simulator, for example.
Or a game with 10 levels that you can approach in 10 different ways each? Sort of like a hitman game or something?
The joke of these games is that they aren’t notably more weird than titles Bethesda and Bioware were famous for turning out. Hard to get more weird than Fallout’s more esoteric vaults or Morrowind’s bizarre cults and exotic cultures.
BG3/KC:D have been, if anything, a direct successors to the old classics. They’re faithfully propagating the fundamental ideas these old titles represented in a way the new studios are unable to reproduce.
Also, honorable mention to the poor bastards who released Disco Elysium and then got their studio stripped out from underneath them by their financiers. Absolute gem of a game and you should feel free to pirate it without a twinge of guilt.
.
There are lots of things to physically fight back over, but video games ain’t one of them.
I’m not talking about video games I’m talking ruining someone’s life and stealing their intellectual property, the fucking performative humiliation he put those guys through. You think a rich CEO who would fuck people over that hard is really redeemable?
Edit: But no, you’re right that he shouldn’t be murdered, he doesn’t necessarily have blood on his hands like a healthcare CEO. He should simply be torn from his home and have all of his property and assets liquidated and distributed as compensation
I am sensing a lot of anger here and given the current state of the world it just seems so misplaced. Like dude, there is really shit going on with real villains and real people siffering, maybe direct that anger there.
Why the fuck would you think it’s not? There’s a lot of goddamn villains in the world, an entire ecosystem of cruelty where people abuse those who they think are below them because of unchecked wealth and power, and people get personally fucked by individuals of that ecosystem every day. Just because there are bigger fish doesn’t mean small fish are exempt. Don’t presume that a frustration with a lesser evil means a blind eye to the greater ones
“Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all!”
Greedy CEOs, MAGA supporters, Islamists, Nazis, Tankies, all the same. If all of those people stopped existing tomorrow, then the world would undoubtably be a better place. I’m ready to die on that hill!
But is it even evil? Like there were contracts involved with terms and conditions. Its not like some guy with a handle bar mustash just swiped the IP and walked away. Someone agreed to the contract that resulted in the loss of their company/IP and if they didn’t read it or consult with legal lawyer who’s bad guy?
Yes, yes it is! On what world would stealing someone’s intellectual work and booting them out of their own company for the sole purpose to keep all of the money for yourself not be evil? Funnily enough, making people sign unfair contracts is literally the most devilish thing ever. It’s the one thing demons and devils do in pretty much every interpretation they appear in. This is why we need more people like Luigi!
help me understand then, because if its a bad contract you don’t have to agree to it. so in what way are these people forced to sign contracts, and what are these terms and conditions that let people steal IP?
Not everyone is literate in contract law, so most people won’t notice these kinds of hidden clauses that allow this. In this case it was a combination of signing over the IP to the developing company which they coowned. because that’s pretty standard procedure. Together with the investors managing to get a majority share of the company and forcing the original devs out by vote.
Just one of the reasons why smart people just license out their IPs. This way no one can take it from you. But again, you have to know quite a bit about contract law to know how this works.
So what yoy are saying is, if they had gotten a lawyer and done some research they could have avoided this issue. Now compare this level of injustice to the genocide that has been happening in the middle east, of these two, which deserves my emotional energy?
Aside from the unacceptable violence, the story here is far more complicated than that.
They were just impossible to work with.
I think PeopleMakeGames did a good YouTube video on it if you’ve not seen it.
What had happened to the people in ZAUM (or what was once that studio), is a tragedy, and a huge shame. I’m not even a cRPG/dnd person, but that game has singlehandedly opened my eyes to a whole new world. It’s easily in my top10 games of all time, and I wish we could get another one eventually
Morrowind is over 20 years old, and there hasn’t been a FO game with compelling plot lines since New Vegas. You are living in the past.
Kinda the point of the comment
They have some good main quest writing, sure, but I feel like the nostalgia glasses factor is big, especially with NV.
It’s also ironic that BG3 is continuation of Bioware’s own franchise.
Just finished Disco Elysium few days ago, watched the credits roll from start to finish to see all the great people working on it, such a great game…now I am sad for what happened to them, I didnt know that
Or, hear me out, the future might be 2D pixel-art games made by one or two people in a bedroom – not by critical acclaim or player sentiment, but just by sheer volume, filling up digital storefronts.
Im almost done playing crosscode and i was floored away by how engaging and fun it is. I never thought id invest 60+ hours in it so willingly and eagerly. Honestly the best time ive had in gaming in a long time.
Kingdom Come Deliverance wasn’t even on my radar and now I’m obsessed. The NPCs are so fucking funny
If I were in your shoes…
The hours I spent on that FUCKING DICE GAME
This might be a unpopular view but I think games like Elden Ring or Lies of P are a better RPGs. More action packed, less busy/boring missions. I beat BG3 and had fun for the first half of the game, the last half was a bit of a drag. I tried KCD 1 and couldn’t get into it, going from one end of the map to another doing mindless tasks. It was more of a middle-age simulator. I put ~250 hours into Elden Ring + DLC and I wanted more by the end of it.
Either way, I have some hope for the future of games.
i don’t know that anyone calls them rpgs.
The article mentions them as action RPGs
wtf
Which is dumb. Souls games are pretty obviously a branch of metroidvanias.
So non RPGs are better RPGs? You don’t have to like RPGs.
Elden Ring is an RPG, not sure what you’re saying.
Elden Ring better classified as an action RPG, to use an analog its more akin to PnP dungeon crawlers in how it approaches its RPG elements. While say Baldurs Gate 3 is closer to an extended campaign PnP game. They are both RPGs but that’s such a broad grouping so as to be meaningful, an atlatl and a welding torch are both tools but there’s no meaningful overlap.
To quote an old RockPaperShotgun comment about Dark Souls, the best decisions are the ones that you don’t know you’re making. DS definitely has storyline changes depending on where you go first, what you do and who you speak to, which is far more natural than a two-way dialogue option for “blatant RPG decision making”.
The tragedy of Elden Ring is that it’s far too long for that. I’ve played through DS several times and would expect to get it finished in about five hours, so can play through the various plot line resolutions in a long evening of gaming. ER has a variety of ways that the DLC can play out, you say? Best book a fortnight off work so that I can get a hundred hours of gaming in.
You can complete 90% of everything in one playthrough. Then complete the other parts in NG+ so you’re not completely starting over. I believe you only need 2 great runes to face the end boss.
Well, yes. But I would argue that if you have the skills to defeat eg. the Draconic Sentinel with just two runes, then it’s probably not your first rodeo. Stumbling over all the steps to eg. Varre or Hyettas quests on an unguided playthrough, which require specific things in a certain order in a huge world, are not particularly likely either. Its size works against it in that regard.
Doing it in NG+ isn’t that difficult at all since you already have your stats set and multiple weapons maxed out.
Do you think your experience here is at all the norm?
For people that really love Dark Souls and have finished it repeatedly, including challenge runs? Five hours is probably taking your time, using rubbish weapons for a laugh. For your first time playing through, hell no - probably more like thirty. The first DS has some unreasonable traps for the unwary - one of the stats is a dead end, many of the weapons scale really badly. Maybe better to start with Scholar or 3, that are better balanced.
Its an action game with RPG like stst systems.
An RPG without a story and full focus on gameplay, if you like fighting monsters over and over again it sure is great, but otherwise it lacks alot
If you’re even remotely interested in Warhammer 40k, the Rogue Trader CRPG is excellent
…steampowered.com/…/Warhammer_40000_Rogue_Trader/
I love Rogue Trader so much.
I wish more of the game was like act 2. That’s where the game really shines
Owlcat in general, despite their buggy releases, make absolutely ambitious and exciting games that are terrifically well written. Wrath of the Righteous is my favorite CRPG out there, and Rogue Trader is close to that as well.
That game was far better then it had any right to be.
Still waiting on an imperial guard focused game though.
Rogue Trader is actually good, but people who eat up medieval fantasy slop like BG3 will probably hate it.
But BioWare games used to be the top tier gaming company standard for excellence. Bethesda used to release amazingly ambitious titles that were unmatched (albeit buggy!).
Greed outweighs the love of games.
When do you think that stopped though?
There’s a lot of love for Skyrim, but I feel like there was already deterioration in the side quest writing, even strictly looking at Oblivion/FO3, not Morrowind.
As for BioWare, even ME3 was starting to show some cracks, even if you set the ending aside. And I loved Mass Effect to death. Heck, I’m even a bigger Andromeda fan than most.
…Point being I think we clung to BioWare/Bethesda a little too hard even when the signs of deoxygenation were there.
Completely agree. BioWare started it’s downward trend when it thought it could cash in on MMORPG billions by creating Star Wars: The Old Republic. Don’t get me wrong, Bioware made awesome games until ~2010. They were bought out by EA in 2007, and that is where we can clearly see that passion was lost. Good games still came out, but they weren’t great.
I will always hold a special spot in my heart for the Elder Scrolls. I’ve played since Daggerfall in the late 90s. I got into Fallout later, but went back and played the originals (except for tactics). A lot of people hate on Skyrim as being janky, but I was there for the original release. Did it have issues? Of course, and it still does. But this was 11 / 11 / 2011 we are talking about. Skyrim was doing things that no one in gaming was doing well, and they told a good story to boot.
The issue that I have with most studios is that they step away from the ideas of furthering or completing a story just because they can’t think of a new gimmic or mechanic to make it hugely profitable. They need those profits to justify the staggering wages paid to the CEO’s. Not to the writers, programmers, or artists.
So Bethesda lost a lot of love when they (like BioWare) attempted to cash in on MMORPGs with Fallout 76.
Funny thing is SWTOR has some great art, heartfelt voice acting and quests, great soundtrack and such, but at the end of the day it’s buried in a grindy.
On the other hand, I tried Fallout 76 (after it was patched up) drunk with friends, and it was boring as heck. The quests were so dull, gameplay so arbitrarily janky and grindy. Drunk! With friends! Do you know how low a bar that is :/
I concur; we need more of this new breed of aggressively strange RPG’s, like earthbound/mother, planescape:torment, and morrowind.
The freedom that Morrowind gives you has never been matched by other Bethesda titles. I think the only path that’s blocked to the player is joining the Sixth House, but at least you can kill Vivec before confronting Dagoth Ur
I can’t speak for Daggerfall’s freedom as I haven’t really delved into it, but I know it has 6 different endings depending on which faction you ally with.
None of what you listed is “new”. Also, Morrowind wasn’t actually “strange” in the slightest. Plenty of fantasy RPGs had elements of sci-fi and weird bug shit (see: Wizardry and even Might and Magic) and the “you can screw up the main quest” was similarly common at the time. Planescape I’ll give you.
Which is also true here. BG3 is not “strange”, It is literally the third Baldurs Gate game and continues most of the same themes and concepts. Yeah, it is a whole lot more gay but even that is not out of the ordinary for CRPGs at this point and had been pushed by companies like Larian, Obsidian, and Owlcat. Hell, the Mass Effects and Dragon Ages deserve a LOT of props for how horny and gay they were and normalizing the idea of picking the right dialogue options for a sexy card cutscene (also see CD Projekt Red).
And KCD2 is one of the most bog standard power fantasy games out there.
Like most articles of this variety, this is just a fancy way of saying “people should make good games”
yes that’s exactly the point. two of these are from the 90s, one is from like 2001. old enough to have good credit and cheap car insurance. im making fun of the title.
no, but it blew a lot of people’s minds so i put it on the list.
citation needed. not that I dislike it, it just feels like the name is tacked on to an otherwise lovely CRPG.
Haven’t played BG3 yet, but I’m interested to read this because I’ve noticed a lot of discussion seems to be about romancing characters, and I don’t remember that being a prominent feature in the first two. That said, I was a kid, so maybe that just went over my head at the time. Or is that something that Larian brought in from their other games?
There were no sex cards, but if memory serves you could “romance” Jaheira (while effectively standing on the still warm corpse of her husband), Aerie (I remember that being kind of fucked but it has been 20 years), Viconia, and one of the boring dudes.
The “romances” weren’t particularly well written but… they honestly aren’t much better these days. We mostly just, as a culture, have moved on from needing everything to be a storybook romance and understanding that sometimes you just need a bang. Which makes “romance” in games a hell of a lot easier.
But also, since BG2 (well, NWN), Bioware have basically made their entire thing “romance options” and so forth. Similar to how Obsidian and Owlcat decided the real culture war was Turn Based versus Real Time With Pause. And Larian realized that we could do all the environmental nonsense that was originally only an option for tabletop games with GMs who didn’t know why you were asking when it last rained.
The Thaumaturge and Clair Obscur both look pretty weird
Interestingly, Avowed is completely missing from this discussion.
Lol where is this from
The article we’re commenting on, after someone said Avowed was missing from this discussion, even though it wasn’t.
Ah
I want to play it but it seems like a $40 game
It’s been worth every penny at $70 to me, and I’ve still probably got about half of it left to go.
Avowed is fantastic IMO. It’s been handcrafted and feels like a living place as opposed to Starfield which was expansive, siloed and impersonal. As a massive Skyrim and Mass Effect fan it is easily my fave game since BG3, probably even more than it in fact.
Personally I just want another RtwP CRPG.
I loved PoE1, didn’t care much about PoE2, and will probably care less about Avowed. There’s something magical about a map full of tiles that aren’t revealed immediately compared to a world map that you can immediately tell how much has been explored.
Same thing for BG3. I love Larian (been a Kickstarter backer since the original D:OS days, been playing almost every one of their games on release day since Dragon Commander) and BG3’s a great RPG, but it doesn’t feel like a good BG game. BG2 gave an immediate sense of “I have no idea where to go so I can do whatever I want”. BG3 is always nudging you to uncover the map and clear all the quests.
How do you feel about Torment: Tides of Numenera?
Should I buy Baldurs Gate 3, its extremely expensive still.
Its a regular price these days. Tho if your not in a hurry just wait for a pricr drop (can wishlist it on deals.gg to get notifed)
Depends. How badly do you want to play the game bioware wishes it could put out?
Is it insanely good, like Factorio level polish, or was it just hyped due to recency bias?
Worth the hype IMHO.
Worth it. Absolutely, it’s got both great game play and story and more so then any other rpg of its type it feels like your character and the choices you make are actually pretty major. It let’s you be more evil then in almost any other game if you are into that.
70% good, 30% hype
It’s not bad but I personally couldn’t get into it, too much dnd.
I will always recommend the game. But holding to a budget is more important.
It’s polished and undoubtedly one of the best games of all time.
My only gripe is that I find the pause-based combat lengthy, though not bad.
I wish there were more new sci-fi RPGs of that quality.
I do hear CP2077 is good now and I keep meaning to play it.
TBH I’ll probably end up enjoying Starfield once I get around to trying it as well.
CP2077’s story is nice but short (for an RPG these days) but the meat is in the world and side missions.
Doesn’t “nice but short but the meat is in the world and side missions” describe most RPGs nowadays?
I rarely play any new ones to be honest so I’m not sure. CP2077 just feels for me like they didn’t stretch out the main story longer than necessary and put a lot of effort into the world and what’s in it.
Western-style ones, yeah. High-effort side content is CD Projekt’s specialty at this point.
As I’ve grown older and busier, I now prefer shorter games. Even when I intentionally try to play games, I may get 2-3 hours a week most weeks. A 100-hour campaign takes me a year to play through.
Is it one of those “play the whole main story and then focus on the side content” situations or “Save the final mission for later because its a proper ending” situations?
the latter, the main story’s final quest lets you know before you start it that’s it’s a point of no return (though you can also just reload a save from before you do it)
I’ve heard people take that approach with Starfield and still be very disappointed. If it’s space you want and are ok with creating your own story, Elite Dangerous is getting a pretty big revival
Its mostly just that I want a Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim with a sci-fi setting. A solid story, lots of side-quests, and a dynamic world that reacts to the player. I’d probably enjoy a modern metropolitan criminal setting as well for an RPG like GTA’s settings but Elder-Scrolls/3D-Fallout gameplay but you never see that at all.
Space is cool though.
I don’t think it’s a super common opinion, but I really liked Starfield’s main story. That said, it completely fails on the dynamic world front. You might be better off with Cyberpunk for now.
I don’t believe you. That game exists, it’s called Starfield, and it failed specifically because of its sci-fi setting and for no other reason.
It failed because it was boring.
It famously had people saying “once you get past the first 12 hours, it gets good” it had nothing to do with the setting. The sci-fi setting was literally what drew people to play it in the first place…
fucking lol.
i can go on but got bored.
the fact that you claim that the only problem starfield had was it’s scifi setting when massively successful scifi games like cyberpunk, deus ex, half life, nier, mass effect etc exist just proves you know nothing about video games.
and more specifically your seem to have no idea what people want from rpgs if you even consider starfield to be one worth mentioning, let alone an exemplary one.
I’ve not gotten around to trying it yet, I’ve already got like 6-7 games on my plate ATM on various devices. I actually suspect I wont hate it but I hear its pretty meh.
Hopefully Bethesda can turn it around with DLC/updates though. I hear modding is still in its infancy too so maybe we’ll get something in that area down the road too.
Also I figure if I wait hopefully Starfield will get a VR edition (or maybe a mod) and that might be when I really want to jump in.
the difference is cyberpunk has good direction and writing. starfield’s got neither. the problem with cyberpunk wasn’t the core of the game, it was bugs. once they fixed most of those the actual direction and story of the game had a chance to shine through.
starfield’s problem is the exact opposite. it was praised for being less buggy than the average BGS game, which is faint praise, but the problem is that it’s badly designed from the very core. it has bad writing, terrible characters, no direction at all, and no vision. bland, boring and basic. there’s no amount of updates that can fix that. the problems aren’t technical. there’s just no talent there.
I’ve had cyberpunk since launch and the only thing that has improved is stability. The game is still a hodgepodge of half baked RPG systems, most of which aren’t even necessary to interact with. No amount of polish can change the fact that it’s a turd underneath.
I can tell you haven’t booted the game up recently because they completely redid the perk system and cyberware not too long ago.
CDPR has been atoning for the sin that was their failed launch for years. In my opinion, the game is a good game now.
That was over a year ago and I have. It’s a bandaid on a dumpster.
I found a combat mod completely changed the game for me. By making it brutally damaging instead of so bullet spongy and deleveling it, it simplifies all that crap away. Perks and guns are for play styles, and it lets one enjoy the game instead of worrying about them.
Yes! BG3 and KC2 devs made amazing games but for some reason decided to have them take place in the most generic, boring medieval/fantasy setting.
I want a pirate RPG, or sci-fi, heck even a hardcore Mario CRPG.
shut your whore mouth about faerun
Faerun is garbage. Aggressively bad even for a medieval fantasy settings. No game set in Faerun can be good.
literally the best crpg games have been set in faerun
No they haven’t. Because they’re set in Faerun.
I want an Eberron game
instead of an actual rpg they went with an mmo and an rts for eberron … idk why
It’s BECAUSE of the generic, boring medieval fantasy settings that they were successful.
You are all over this thread. We get it, you dont like medievil fantasy… clearly not a popular opinion.
Exactly.
Maybe KCD2 is for you then, it got rid of the fantasy part and has historic figures in it instead.
Take a look at Exodus.
The problem is that gamers hate anytging that isn’t generic medieval fantasy.
I have no comprehension what this is attempting to imply as I’m not sure who makes what games…
However, I do have some valid input. Kingdom Come Deliverance is the only single player game I’ve played since literally Metal Gear Solid 2…
Zero interest in single player games, yet I got Kingdom Come Deliverance for free so screw it I was bored hopped on got stoned.
By like hour 14 I realized I was playing a movie. With endless paths true freedom. I almost actually played it… I think I made it 40 some hours in and 20 of those hours were unlocking combos and learning them. Killing randoms on the roads etc.
I enjoyed it thoroughly yet, in the end it was still a single player game. All I could consider the entire time playing it was … Imagine if this map had 100 players on it. How epic of an mmoprg this game could make.
No, stop, let us have single player games, with 100-10000 players in an MMORPG you are suddenly diluted and weak, your ability to influence the world and be heroic and become powerful is suddenly dependent on competing for time investment and skill with 100s to 1000s of other people. THATS WHAT I ALREADY DO IN REAL LIFE. If I want to feel mid and not very powerful without putting in a ton of extra work, I’ll go outside. Especially when doing that extra work would actually allow me to spend EVEN LESS TIME on myself in the real world.
TLDR: there are enough MMOs, there are DEFINITELY enough competitive multiplayer games (also PVM/P survival building games) I do not understand people’s obsessions with saying the very small number of great single player games we have ought to be MMOs. Go play ESO or whatever it is you guys like playing.
What we need is an mmo where you can make a difference. What do I mean by that? How would that work?
For start, the “you’re the hero” thing, where 12981891961899 other mother fuckers are in the background doing the same exact thing, or getting the same exact speech as your are, needs to go. Just make me a regular dude that is adventuring. Just like DnD tt.
How do you affect the world then? In DAoC, there were NPC raids on cities. You could go in and kill the leader, then the whole group would disband and run back to their village across the river. There were other similar events like this throughout the world. We need stuff like that. NPCs, or even players if you choose PvP, that affect the world. Instead of staying in one spot and just roaming a set path, they should be attacking the cities that they are mad at or revolting/gathering to revolt against. Make it so they can actually take territory. Take over cities. Assault capital cities. Even just randomly wander on a not set range. What I’d give to play an mmo where I have the chance to be randomly jumped by (level appropriate) NPCs. Even outside of a place they’re normally found.
This adds dynamic change to the world. It’s not a static area. It makes it so that beginner zones are abandoned as soon as most level out of them. You need to make sure NPCs don’t take over the city because you need that flight path/horse route/etc.
We could even have animal infestations. People aren’t killing farmer bill’s rats? They take over the farm and whatever he supplies isn’t available in the local city’s stores.
There are so many things that can be done with NPCs to make the world feel alive and more dynamic. Again, I’m not the hero here. I’m just an adventurer, a normal mercenary, that is trying to keep the enemy in line or the rat population from getting out of control.
Less flash, more passionate people allowed to create. Shocker.
The article totally misses the big intervening step between Skyrim/old Bioware and the failure of Starfield/Dragon Age: CDProjectRED.
While those studios largely just made “more of the same”, CDPR made Witcher 3 and then Cyberpunk 2077. Both games are way better narrative experiences and pushed RPG forward. Starfield looks very dated in comparison to both, and Dragon Age failed to capture to magic. Baldur’s Gate 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 are successes because they also bring strong narratives and emotional connections to the stories.
Starfield would have been huge if it had been released soon after Skyrim. But now it just looks old fashioned, and I think the “wide as an ocean, as deep as a puddle” analogy is good for Starfield. Meanwhile Witcher 3 - which is 10 years old! - has quests and storylines with choices and emotional impact. BG3 and KC:D2 are heirs to Witcher 3.
People like to write off CP2077, which is such a shame.
…And maybe this makes me a black sheep, but I bounced off Witcher 2/3? I dunno, I just didn’t like the combat and lore, and ended up watching some of the interesting quests on YouTube.
Could somebody please explain fo me how either of these two aggressively cliche and generic games are in any way “ambitious, weird, and unexpected”?
List some RPGs that are better and lets discuss.
Are you serious? Do you need help understanding the definitions of ambitious, weird, and unexpected?
Do you need a run down of all generic clones of games bioware and bethesda have released in recent times?
They are literally sequels. 2 and 3. That removes any chance of them being unexpected now doesn’t it you dunce.
Ambitious, sure; if your definition of ambitious is delivering a complete game at release.
Weird? If you think these games are weird I’ll absolutely punish your eyeballs with just some stuff on steam that will leave these two games looking absolutely mainstream.
This would be a great reply if you didn’t call him a dunce which will likely get your comment deleted.
Genuinely curious since that sounds interesting. What games are these?
“Aggressively cliché” huh?
So… Where are all the realistic medieval sandbox RPGs? You know, of the kind set in an actual historical period?
Or… Or… How often has capturing the freedom and complexity of D&D in a videogame been attempted so accurately?
For something to even approach becoming a cliché there’d have to be a lot of that particular something done in exactly that particular way. So please do give a nice long list of games exactly like Kingdom Come Deliverence and Baldur’s Gate 3, because clearly everyone must’ve missed them.
People understandably love to hate Oblivion and Fallout 3, but I feel the side quest writing had heart, like groups of devs got to go wild within their own little dungeons. Their exploitable mechanics were kinda endearing.
…And I didn’t get that from Starfield? I really tried to overlook the nostalgia factor, but all the writing felt… corporate. Gameplay, animation, Bethesda jank without any of the fun. I abandoned it early and tried to see what I was missing on YouTube, but still don’t “get” what people see in that game.
If you want a big walking sandbox in that vein, I feel like No Man’s Sky would scratch the itch far better, no?
Meanwhile, BG3 and KC2 completely floored me. So did Cyberpunk 2077, though I only experienced it patched up and modded. Heck, even ME Andromeda felt more compelling to me.
I got Cyberpunk in December and KCD2 in February. At this point I’m convinced I’ve spoiled the entire RPG genre for myself for the next decade. I can’t imagine playing 2 great games back to back like that again.
Oblivion is my favorite Elder Scrolls. I actually played it again recently and thought it held up pretty well. I’m a sucker for wandering lush bucolic landscapes though.
You should play KC Deliverance 2 if you haven’t. Its forests and rural villages are freaking gorgeous, especially for how “easy” it is to run.
Yes! I’ve played a fair bit of KCD 2. Really enjoying it!