Console/Computer RPG quick rant/muse
Jan. 12th, 2005 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seawaspSomeday I will help write a computer RPG that allows a better simulation of roleplaying, avoids making you feel either like you're on a railroad or that you're just a doofus because you can't figure out where to go next, and that allows MORE THAN ONE PERSON TO PLAY ON THE SAME CONSOLE. It has TWO CONTROL PORTS, you know! Dumb fight games allow two-player action, why not RPGs?
This concludes this minor rant.
This concludes this minor rant.
I knew..
Date: 2005-01-13 02:30 pm (UTC)Properly done, they should be INDEPENDENT. If the characters are together, fine, if not, splitscreen. Simple. Guy on left has left side of screen, guy on right has right side of screen. You could have arguments, split off, go on your own sidequests, then decide, you know, I gotta find out what the other dude's up to, he's probably in trouble, and go looking for him.
"Dumb fight games" yes, in the sense that the two-player mode there has always been trivially obvious, and trivially doable; if you can have the computer supply a fighter, you just assign the decisions to the other player. It's much more complex in an RPG, which is why I don't question why they didnt' START as two-player. Nowadays there's no excuse for forcing one-player mode, nor any excuse for having twenty-hour storylines rather than 100 hour storylines, or for having one single possible route and ending rather than several dozen.
Re: I knew..
Date: 2005-01-14 03:06 am (UTC)I SEVERELY disagree with the "100 hour storylines" thing, because Longer (as I've said before and will say again) DOES NOT equal better. Au contraire, actually--RPGs have gotten to the point where they throw in stupid, meaningless drivel that doesn't help the game at all, simply so they can advertise an 80 hour game length. Dragon Quest VII is a good example--there are only so many times you can go through the lather-rinse-repeat routine before you realize that the game is simply dragging on.
Simply put, I would rather the writers be unpretentious. If the only solid plotline you have works for a twelve hour game, don't weaken it just to make it work for twenty hours. There's a reason the Short Story genre still exists. Sometimes, I would rather a story be too short and leave me wanting more, than be too long and asking "Will it freakin' END already?!"
Anyway, as for the two-player Split Screen, I don't think that would work as well as you think. In my case, I have a small television, and split screen games as they are, already give me viewing problems. Personally I think it would be distracting to have to, say, fight an enemy yet always see a magic flash or whatever coming from your friend's screen. The only way I could see this working, really, through a link cable... and that's already been tried (not in RPGs necessarily, but the concept of Network Cables in general seems to only be accepted on PCs).
Online play is another matter, however.
You know, we should get together and play some good old fashioned Pen and Paper games sometime. My rulebooks don't get enough use.
Re: I knew..
Date: 2005-01-14 04:40 am (UTC)But I ain't spending 40 bucks on 12 hours of gameplay, either. If you can't give me a story that will last AT LEAST 40 hours (my rule of thumb: gimme at least an hour of entertainment for every dollar I spend), you ain't worthy to write RPGs.
Hell, if I wrote Digital Knight as an RPG, it'd be well over 100 hours of gameplay. Assuming I didn't throw in new stuff, which I almost certainly would.
I don't agree about the splitscreen, as I've seen it done in several games for other purposes (some of the SNES DBZ games had this), but that's a matter of taste. Online would defeat the point of being able to sit down, say with your kid or your wife, and play TOGETHER. Make it a social, rather than ANTIsocial, activity -- which would still ALSO be able to be played solo.
I still do PnP games. Two out of three weekends. Plus the one PBEM I'm running.
Re: I knew..
Date: 2005-01-14 07:13 am (UTC)Of all of those, I've had the most fun with Ghostbusters (though admittedly I haven't gotten to play AD&D yet).
I agree with the "dollar/hour" ratio.. but I don't expect to use it all up at once.
I bought Final Fantasy 6 (Americanized SNES version) for $50 back in the day.
I beat it in 30 hours.
Then I went through and beat it again, five more times.
30 x 5 = 150 hours.
And now I'm replaying it again, almost a decade later. It was worth the investment. ^__^
I'm pretty sure you can say the same for Chrono Trigger, no?
Re: I knew..
Date: 2005-01-14 02:32 pm (UTC)All of them. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but I've played an AWFUL LOT of RPGs since I started back in '77. Currently I'm running an AMBER campaign, my most recent games have been that, D&D3e (which I helped playtest), Feng Shui, and a couple superhero games, plus a Shadowrun/Vampire crossbreed.
I do. That is, the first time through the game had better be 40+ hours or I'm ripped off. (The worst offender in that category was Parasite Eve, which I beat in under 13 hours; otherwise it was a great game, but far too short.)
Yes and no. My first time through CT was about 100 hours. Never having played a CRPG before makes one rather inefficient. This was a good thing as it was like $60 - $70 bucks brand new.
It had considerable replay value, of course.
Re: I knew..
Date: 2005-01-14 04:33 pm (UTC)As for Parasite Eve... I got it used for something like $15, and I didn't even bother to beat it (it was just so... so BORING). Now -I- feel ripped off -__-.
But getting back to the question of multiplayer RPGs, I just thought of another one that needs a well-implemented multiplayer mode. Have you ever heard of Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM for short)? Personally, I would almost pay money for a version of that which could be played with friends over a network or something.
Rassassassafrassin' LJ...
Date: 2005-01-16 10:21 pm (UTC)Where are you? ("getting together" implies geographic closeness)
Parasite Eve BORING? I found it riveting, just too damn short. The opening alone was jawdropping; I have that music on all my computers. I actually see it as being good music for a "Jason Wood: Series" show.
No, I never heard of ADOM before...
Re: Rassassassafrassin' LJ...
Date: 2005-01-16 11:03 pm (UTC)Anyway, I live in Arkansas, but I was thinking of playing over AIM or something. It's not impossible--I've done it before.
And yea, we do have different tastes. For a few hours I stomached Parasite Eve... and then one day I just turned it off and never picked it up again.
As for ADOM... well, it's homepage is here (http://www.adom.de). Just try it out--the game is freeware.
Re: Rassassassafrassin' LJ...
Date: 2005-01-17 03:31 am (UTC)RE ADOM: Ah. I don't particularly like the Roguelike games. They were mildly amusing when I first saw them, but while I deplore the current trend of flash and glitz over substance, I also think that there's no reason to stay back in the display era of "yeah, I could've made THAT on my 300 baud DECWriter attached to the PDP-11 back in '77" either. And I definitely want diversity and character interaction and development -- more than dungeon whomping, actually. One of the appeals of Chrono Trigger was that you mostly DIDN'T have to fight things if you didn't want to; this is one of the lessons I've really wished the FF series would learn.
And of course ADOM apparently doesn't have a Mac version yet...