CRPG Revival

[Anonymous No.5577474]

>2019 I am forgotten
Should game developers try to make unique classics in the style of 80s-90s crpgs? It looks like the genre is dead and the audience it's aiming at are a bunch of elitists who will say it will never be as good as the classics like IWD or BG2.

[Anonymous No.5577516]

>>5577474
I only play BGT, but I enjoyed what little I played of Tyranny. It's just I decided to buy the game when I have the time to play it instead of playing on a pirated copy. Maybe this summer I will.

And when it comes to actually replying to the OP and not blogposting, yeah, I do think it's a dead genre and developers should move on and experiment with new stuff. I find it hard to believe that with today's hardware capabilities the games we get make such bad use of them, or they are just GRPAHICS WOW!! which is something I don't see the point of. Fucking normalfags.

[Anonymous No.5577518]

>>5577474
I bought it to support what I like, but never tried playing it yet )
it's in my to-play list though, but far from the top

[Anonymous No.5577819]

>>5577474
what game is that looks great

[Anonymous No.5577869]

>>5577819
Serpent in the Staglands. I just found about it today. Made by 2 people apparently. They did a good job compared to the usual pixelshit platformers that are being pumped out by indie devs.

[Anonymous No.5577871]

>>5577819
Darklands 2.

[Anonymous No.5577950]

Genres die when there is no innovation in place. Innovation, and not quality, is the most important component in every creative medium. That's why Pokemon 1 sold the most.

[Anonymous No.5577967]

>>5577950
So it's only ok to do spiritual successors to popular games like Nioh (dark souls)? This seems like bait. The FPS genre has practically no innovation same with battle royale fps.

I don't think this is the case. I'm thinking the audience is used to pirating and having this genre for free and that the standards are too high for any single dev to live up to.

It's an example of the audience killing it's own genre.

[Anonymous No.5577972]

>>5577474
>80s-90s crpgs
no, that would cause massive butthurt among the BG style fans

[Anonymous No.5578004]

>>5577967
>I'm thinking the audience is used to pirating and having this genre for free and that the standards are too high for any single dev to live up to.

You're being way, way, WAY too pessimistic - especially considering that most of these games are funded by the fans in the first place

The problem with the CRPG revival is that most of them are shit. The Shadowrun trilogy for example is one of the worst things I've ever had the misfortune of playing, but Wasteland 2 is without a doubt the best (outside of Divinity Original Sin 2) of the CRPG revival attempts, but it has a problem, a HUGE problem, in fact:

Its design. The game lacks replay value as a result of the way it's designed, as I never realised it until now that Fallout 1 and 2 having your character be the most important added a lot of replay value when designing your character. (Not to mention being able to go where you pleased, as WL2 is borderline mission based and linear)

So if Wasteland 2 were designed smarter from the get go in making you the most important part and making your team more of a zergling army with no skills other than weapons, I could see having a reason to replay WL2.

[Anonymous No.5578007]

>>5577474
>the audience it's aiming at are a bunch of elitists who will say it will never be as good as the classics like IWD or BG2.
That same audience generally loved the hell out of Pathfinder: Kingmaker - the part that was capable of overlooking how horridly glitchy that game is.

You will find most RPG grognards consider Real-Time with Pause games to be unadulterated garbage, so the elitism runs even deeper than what you thought. Personally, I found most of the RPGs (DivOS, PoE) in the last decade to be pretty damn good.

[Anonymous No.5578010]

>>5578007
>That same audience generally loved the hell out of Pathfinder: Kingmaker

A game that did as well as POE2, a flop

[Anonymous No.5578018]

>>5578004
>until now that Fallout 1 and 2 having your character be the most important added a lot of replay value when designing your character.
The problem here is that Fallout stats and skills work in such a way that it's very easy to make a combat-hardened everyman who can do absolutely everything there is to do in the game. Moreover, due to how bad some stats are (ST and CH) and due to power of drugs, almost every build can be built more or less the same way, from a melee brawler to a sniper. The biggest variance seems to be whether you play a stupid character or not, and only in FO2 do you get more interesting interactions than "Argh? Hoo?"

Guys behind Age of Decadence thought that RPGs should ensure that every playthrough is unique and that you can't see 100% of the game with every character, citing Fallout 1's on-paper design as an example (how it worked out is plain to see). AoD might be one of the few RPGs where that principle does hold water, though it still only found a vibe with a niche within a niche.

I also am of the unpopular opinion that WL2 shouldn't be considered a descendant of Fallout.

>Shadowrun trilogy for example is one of the worst things I've ever had the misfortune of playing
Dragonfall is a good game.

[Anonymous No.5578020]

>>5578010
This statistic can only show how hyped game was at certain point, that's all.
At least use steamspy(which is not entirely correct) for sales.

[Anonymous No.5578028]

>>5578018
Yes, which could all be fixed with sequels, but FO2 never had that sequel that fixed shit. The fact that endurance doesn't add damage resist is one of the greatest sins of that games design, as endurance is fucking useless and basically a free stat pool to steal from

>I also am of the unpopular opinion that WL2 shouldn't be considered a descendant of Fallout.

Literally sold itself to people that only knew of FO1 and 2, not WL1.

>Dragonfall is a good game.

It's not, but hey, you don't understand that CRPG revival only happened because of the fans either, so...

[Anonymous No.5578042]

>>5578004
>pessimism
I'm being pessimistic about spiritual successor CRPGs. Not the genre as a whole. There can be universally accepted games in the genre like your list >>5578010 because they are generally good games.

Have there been any true spiritual successor games like SITS that came out and changed the genre? Or only polished 3D games that have gotten attention?

People don't like the old systems anymore. Note taking in games, mapmaking, immersive crafting design, typing-based magic systems like in Dark Heart of Uukrul. Everything is streamlined. Something was lost when the audience decided that modernizing is the only way forward.

[Anonymous No.5578051]

>>5578042
>People don't like the old systems anymore.

How do you know?

>Note taking in games, mapmaking, immersive crafting design, typing-based magic systems like in Dark Heart of Uukrul. Everything is streamlined. Something was lost when the audience decided that modernizing is the only way forward.

Like how the Shadowshit trilogy is a linear series of visual novels with no real gameplay, world interaction, UI designed for a phone, etc

All of that comes down to the designers/devs. You literally can't blame users for the way the devs designed the game unless you're being intentionally obtuse about the issue: The devs don't know what they're doing or have no real passion for CRPGs, and I get a lack of passion for CRPGs from Shadowrun for example when the world is a giant, flat, glowy node made for iphones

[Anonymous No.5578056]

>>5578010
In my opinion, the people that OP claims to be
>the audience it's aiming at are a bunch of elitists who will say it will never be as good as the classics like IWD or BG2.
aren't the mainstream audience. "Elitists" thought PoE1 was a poor facsimile of the Infinity Engine games, but the game was very warmly received everywhere else, enough to warrant a sequel.
Among those "elitists", I'd wager P:K was the only game that came close. And it's not like the cRPG genre isn't full of games that were embraced by a niche community in spite of their glaring flaws, such as basically the entire Troika catalog.

If we're going to set the expectations for the cRPG revival by sales, then I think not a whole lot of stuff will break through. DivOS2 might be an outlier, but that game has pretty awesome couch co-op.
>Literally sold itself to people that only knew of FO1 and 2, not WL1.
What makes you say that? A cursory look at the Kickstarter page shows that the game isn't trying to be a Fallout 3, but a Wasteland 2. They're proud primarily of having made some GOTY 1988 and bringing the old team back together. There's nothing to say that, design-wise, the game was meant to be a Fallout successor. Certainly not in the way PoE (or even DA:O) was an offspring of Baldur's Gate enthusiasts.

Besides, there's not a whole lot in the game design itself to suggest the game is supposed to be compared to Fallout on any other basis than "both are post-apocalyptic". The quoted post itself noted that WL2 is "borderline mission-based and linear". This game is less a Fallout than Underrail is. Fallout style of storytelling isn't something they were going for.

>>5578028
>It's not, but hey
Except it is, what do you say now? What is the point of such a statement? I'm not interested in this mode of discussion; I never attacked you. This thread still has a good chance of not becoming a contrarian /v/ shitpile.

[Anonymous No.5578063]

>>5578051
Because games don't have them anymore?
And preferences have changed for the average gamer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzkCmidjeHc
Note taking, map making, or reading a manual aren't things gamers do anymore.

I'll check that series out because I don't know much about it. Learn from failures of others.

[Anonymous No.5578068]

>>5578056
>A cursory look at the Kickstarter page shows that the game isn't trying to be a Fallout 3, but a Wasteland 2.

A cursory look at the Steam page makes it loud and clear that they're proud of being called Fallout like

Also see: >>5578051

The Shadowrun games are terrible - hell, the dialogue isn't fucking centered like every other good WRPG I've played. Granted, I understand they have their fanboys, but in the realm of CRPGs being as dead as they are, there will always be people that enjoy shit just because it's part of a genre they like; god knows I've watched some pretty bad horror movies.

[Anonymous No.5578082]

>>5578063
>Because games don't have them anymore?
>Note taking, map making, or reading a manual aren't things gamers do anymore.

Whose fault is that? The players didn't make the game. Hell, Skyrim mods literally try to add depth back to a game that Bethesda tried so hard to suck out

The funny thing is, TES6 could be the most hardcore entry in the series, and the casuals would still love it.

[Anonymous No.5578083]

>>5578051
>Like how the Shadowshit trilogy is a linear series of visual novels with no real gameplay, world interaction
Says you. At least Dragonfall has a competently written story that's tonally appropriate for the setting it's derived for, skills enabling new approaches to quests and sidequests. It's very true to a Shadowrun PnP experience, in my opinion. As a bonus, it's a fairly short RPG - something very welcome in an era where one of the biggest marketing selling points is how many hours you can squeeze out of the gameplay. I will take my 20 hours of Dragonfall and enjoy a quick RPG romp, over an RPG that is tediously "overwritten", like Tides of Numenera.

>>5578068
>A cursory look at the Steam page makes it loud and clear that they're proud of being called Fallout like
Which doesn't have any bearing on how the game is actually designed. What came first, the game design or the raving review?
>hell, the dialogue isn't fucking centered like every other good WRPG I've played
Can you elaborate what "centered dialogue" actually is?

[Anonymous No.5578094]

>>5578083
>Can you elaborate what "centered dialogue" actually is?

Basically from KOTOR, to even Fallout 3 and the classics like Baldur's Gate, dialogue right in the middle of the screen

Shadowrun puts it off to the side in a small box for some reason

[Anonymous No.5578104]

>>5578083
>Says you

Says me what? It's a fact of how the game was designed that you can't interact with it.

Fallout 1 and 2 example: Sticking dynamite in the pants of people you pick pocket. That's world interaction. Finding items on the ground and having an inventory where you can drop items on the ground. That's world interaction

Shadowrun does not have that

[Anonymous No.5578130]

>>5578094
Behold, shit RPGs incoming.

Needless to say, I find your statement to be an entirely arbitrary reason for considering an RPG shitty. If anything, it's just mildly annoying and substandard. Not a dealbreaker, in my book.

>>5578104
You can interact with the game plenty through combat, dialogue and customization for missions. Meat of Dragonfall in particular is preparing and carrying out Shadowruns. That's what the game does, and it does it well. The Fallout 1 example of sticking dynamite in other people's pockets is a bit of a tall order when you think this particular property is fairly unique to that game.

You could very well turn the argument on its head by suggesting that Fallout's world interaction is imperfect, particularly of how it can break immersion - you can steal Bozars off of people's backs and forcefeed the President Super Stimpaks and he never questions your actions. Water is a big deal in the lore but the game doesn't really do much to force you to hydrate in spite of Vault 13 Water Canteens being an item.

You need to have a certain minimum degree of interactivity to pass for a game or you'll just figure anything south of Fallout is shit. I think Dragonfall passes that minimum. Its strengths do not lie in interaction. They don't have to to make a convincingly good RPG.

Like, the systems in dungeon-crawly games like M&M do not even let you deposit your items. Chests are destroyed upon opening, and if there's a bank, its space is limited and restricted to city limits. If you drop them on the ground, they're considered destroyed, you can't go back to where you put them. Are they shit RPGs?

[Anonymous No.5578132]

>>5578082
Dark heart hardcore or Kingdom come hardcore?
That term is nebulous.

Again, I think preferences have changed. More immersive crafting systems like potion making in kingdom come? Casuals will accept that. Typing based magic like in Dark Heart? No chance.

[Anonymous No.5578143]

>>5578130
ew

[Anonymous No.5578149]

>>5578143
yuck

[Anonymous No.5578154]

>>5578143
>>5578149
bleh

[Anonymous No.5578158]

>>5578143
>>5578149
https://youtu.be/ddR3nYB0T40?t=4

[Anonymous No.5578174]

ok this is epic

[Anonymous No.5578193]

>>5578130
>Behold, shit RPGs incoming.

NWN1 is indeed shit

Ultima 6 has an excuse for being fuck old

>You need to have a certain minimum degree of interactivity to pass for a game or you'll just figure anything south of Fallout is shit.

Yes, RPGs without world interaction are just Dragon Age 2 aka shit (Shadowrun is the Dragon Age 2 of top down RPGs, to be sure, which makes me wonder why so many people hate DA2 when Shadowshit is as bad, if not worse)

[Anonymous No.5578203]

>>5578132
It's Kingdom Come's fault for making it easy to craft shit

It's Legend of Grimrock's fault for adding an automap

It's Bethesda's fault Fallout and Elder Scrolls are casual shit

IT IS NOT

THE

PLAYERS FAULT

[Anonymous No.5578224]

>>5578193
>NWN1 is indeed shit
It isn't, but okay. Even if you don't like the original campaigns (the screenshot posted here is HotU, which is the most celebrated original campaign for NWN1), the game is a vehicle for a fuckton of really good RPGs with great combat, stories, dialogue, and interaction ability thanks to community mods. A Dance With Rogues, Aielund Saga and Swordflight are good RPGs.
You ignored ToEE. Ultima 6 doesn't have that excuse because there are games its age that already have "centered" text.
>(Shadowrun is the Dragon Age 2 of top down RPGs, to be sure, which makes me wonder why so many people hate DA2 when Shadowshit is as bad, if not worse)
One is a low-budget (and appropriately priced at that) short RPG that is meant to be primarily a mission-based squad romp entirely focused around the mechanics of titular Shadowruns and, during downtime, preparing for new heists while talking with your colourful party members. It does these things fairly well.
Dragon Age 2 is a bloated, rushed mess that had to deliver on expectations from DA:O and didn't satisfy fans of combat OR story, and all of that has been released with the price of an AAA game.

Last I checked, Dragon Age 2 lets you place items in containers, so it should pass your criteria for interactability, too.

[Anonymous No.5578234]

>>5578224
Last I checked, NWN1 and Ultima 6 had superior sequels that fixed the dialogue problem

>Last I checked, Dragon Age 2 lets you place items in containers

You can't place the items into the world, but nice try. You can only do things in the games world if there's a node or a dialogue option (like Shadowrun). Dragon Age 2 is designed like an offline MMO, and so is Shadowrun to be frank.

[Anonymous No.5578245]

>>5578234
>Last I checked, NWN1 (...) had superior sequels that fixed the dialogue problem
After years of normalization in the industry and made by completely different developers. Whether it is a superior sequel is also debatable.
>You can't place the items into the world, but nice try.
I stand corrected.
>Dragon Age 2 is designed like an offline MMO, and so is Shadowrun to be frank.
They are nothing alike. You have to grasp at straws to call Shadowrun to be anywhere close to an MMO solely on this basis. By that measure, Final Fantasy 6 is an "offline MMO".

[Anonymous No.5578253]

>>5578245
FF6 is a good comparison because both it and Shadowshit and Dragon Age 2 are flat games with 0 world interaction

[Anonymous No.5578254]

>>5578253
I think that will be the end of our little debate, good night Anon.

[Anonymous No.5578262]

>>5577869
It looks way less low res than I remember seeing in steam screenshots. I'll try to remember checking it out someday

[Anonymous No.5578265]

>>5578245
>They are nothing alike.

They are in lack of world interaction

I use the MMO comparison because it's the best way to get across a game with no player input other than the most basic bitch of fighting and collecting shit.

>>5578254
>Being this blown the fuck out

[Anonymous No.5578271]

>>5578265
>t. never played an MMO

[Anonymous No.5578276]

>>5578271
I mean I know there are things like Star Wars Galaxies, but I never got to play them; I'm more used to the World of Warcraft style template where nothing but end game PVE/PVP shit matters, and I can't honestly think of more of a waste of time than the design of an MMO

[Anonymous No.5578283]

>>5578276
>I'm more used to the World of Warcraft style template where nothing but end game PVE/PVP shit matters
t. wotlk babby

[Anonymous No.5578289]

>>5578056
>good chance of not becoming a contrarian /v/ shitpile.
That didnt last very long.

[Anonymous No.5578292]

>>5578283
I don't know what that means, but I don't like MMORPGs

[Anonymous No.5578303]

>>5578007
>Real-Time with Pause games to be unadulterated garbage
but that's true

[Anonymous No.5578309]

>not M&M revival

[Anonymous No.5578313]

>>5578309
M&M? or HoMM?

Blobbers are never coming back, old man.

[Anonymous No.5578324]

How is that Druids game?

[Anonymous No.5578328]

>>5578324
Mysterious.

[Anonymous No.5578335]

>>5578328
Needs a Nintendo Switch shopped in

[Anonymous No.5579320]

>>5578303
>Real time
>with pause
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

[Anonymous No.5579558]

>>5578292
>I don't know what that means,
this "discussion" in a nutshell.

[Anonymous No.5580790]

>>5579320
>dude, it'll be just like those cool rts games the kids are playing

[Anonymous No.5582523]

>>5580790
>the kids are playing RTS
The kids are playing shitty battle royales. Just don't make a match hold for more than 5 minutes to keep their attention.

[Anonymous No.5582565]

>we want to deliver a classic 90s crpg experience
>it's a tile and/or turnbased dungeon crawler

Every god damn time.
People do know the 90s didn't end in '92, right?

pic related still doesn't have a modern sequel.

[Anonymous No.5582603]

>>5582565
>pic related still doesn't have a modern sequel.
You wish it hadn't.

[Anonymous No.5582627]

>>5578018
>Dragonfall is a good game.
I will never understand why this one gets so much praise. I actually liked the Shadowrun games, but Dragonfall was the worst one. It drops you into a saccharine hugbox of rebels with hearts of gold who follow you without question because their bestest buddy told them to before she died, with one token arbitrarily defiant, obvious self-insert super badass who is scripted to win every argument she gets into. The first couple hours of that game are made fucking insufferable by those characters, and they only ever improve to the point of being just barely tolerable. If Dragonfall's goal was to give you the authentic tabletop experience of playing with a group of airheads who keep livejournals it sure as shit succeeded.

[Anonymous No.5582642]

>>5582523
At the time when pause and play overtook turn-based in RPGs (late 90s), RTS was extremely popular and the kids were definitely playing them.

[Anonymous No.5582660]

Person who posted the argument here, generally Dragonfall has the best pacing and best overall campaign out of all of them. I liked all three campaigns and I would overall be willing to support HBS' making more campaigns in this engine, but Hong Kong generally regressed in terms of entertaining combat setpieces and DMS was a little bit farther thematically from the kind of formula I expect from Shadowrun. But they're all, overall, decent experiences. The hugbox of rebels definitely has some signs of your typical BioWare group of misfits, but I didn't mind it that much because it simply has the tightest gameplay.

[Anonymous No.5582661]

>>5582603
BETRAYAL

[Anonymous No.5582663]

>>5582627
>>5582660

[Anonymous No.5582665]

>>5577967
>The FPS genre has practically no innovation same with battle royale fps.
yeah but they have online pvp, same reason fighting games and action rpgs like dark souls can remain relevant, they have that competitive/social element
single player game are kinda fucked on that front

[Anonymous No.5582683]

>>5582660
>>5582663
That's fair, and gameplay wise you're right.

I'll add that I think DMS is underrated and unfairly dismissed. Admittedly I don't know the Shadowrun universe well enough to speak to it's authenticity, but taken on it's own I love the story. It's tropey as hell, but exhibits a level of pulp fiction self-awareness that Dragonfall and HK do not seem to have.

[Anonymous No.5582685]

>>5582603
In the state it released that could barely be considered a game - let alone an underworld game.

[Anonymous No.5582691]

>>5582685
It is still an UU successor. It even came from Warren Spector. Neener neener.
Mean-spirited dagger-into-the-soul argument aside, I guess the best UU-esque game I played was Arx Fatalis.

[Anonymous No.5582751]

>>5577474
Sure they should -- the formulae proved their worth and could be even more entertaining today if done properly. Problem is we need earnest efforts and not just nostalgia cash-in schemes.

Indie developers aren't going to have the resources and time to make fully fleshed out, highly interactive worlds (although I suppose the Iron Tower guys qualify as indie, and Age of Decandence was excellent). Big developers are going to continue to 'casualize' their games as they're concerned with reaching the largest possible market. Still, I think there's a lot of money to be made for medium sized devs who actually invest properly in world building, writing and art... If you can get the investment to license a decent engine, the technology side shouldn't be very demanding (and the cRPG audience aren't typically concerned with cutting edge graphics and such). It does appear though that in general, games are much more expensive to produce these days... I suppose that and the general logic complexity of rpgs (webs of interconnected variables) are the primary hurdles.

>>5577950
If that ain't bait, you're a huge retard. By that logic Jackson Pollock and ilovefriday are 'important' artists who have contributed something of worth. Innovation for naught but it's own sake is cancer.

[Anonymous No.5582794]

>>5577474
It's not like IWD is an especially high bar to surpass. Many of us elitists view it as a stolid combat slog (albeit with well done combat).

>>5582691
I'm more curious about what the hell Neurath was thinking... He was the designer of UU1 -- the guy with the vision. He should've been keenly aware of abscence of the 'underworld magic' in this new abomination.

[Anonymous No.5582804]

>>5577967
>I don't think this is the case. I'm thinking the audience is used to pirating and having this genre for free and that the standards are too high for any single dev to live up to.
>It's an example of the audience killing it's own genre.
No, in my opinion it's just that crpg in the current year are a niche market that requires a lot of creative talent to work, creative talent that can easily find higher salaries and better work conditions pretty much on any other video game market.
The main problem of the crpg genre for those that try their hand at it despite that, is Baldur's Gate 2, which is unironically as close to a perfect game as possible.
Devs know they can't surpass it and so they start defeated. Consequently, for 2 decades they have tried taking what works and adding a bit of their own ideas to the mix. Problem is, none of them understand what makes BG2 work (neither do I, beyond an exceptional concentration of talent at the right time and place mind you), and they all end up stuck in their own quirks. For PoE, their boring politically infused story and autistic obsession for balance, for Kingmaker, not knowing if they want to copy warcraft or Baldur's gate but wanting to do it really hard, etc.
the audience isn't responsible for PoE having boring and retarded writing, for kingmaker to be silly at best, for divinity to not even attempt at having any sort of depth in its story, etc.
It's yet another case of devs trying to anticipate what the audience want, and failing. Can't blame the audience for that, it's the devs who chose to make their shit on what they assume it wants.
Great Rpgs and great games in general don't actually care much about what the audience wants during the development process. Because they know that the audience has no idea what it wants until it gets it.

[Anonymous No.5582828]

Sorry OP, but the CRPG genre has been saved for a while now.

[Anonymous No.5582831]

>>5582804
Much truth in this post.

[Anonymous No.5582917]

>>5582804
>Kingmaker, not knowing if they want to copy warcraft or Baldur's gate but wanting to do it really hard
how
>kingmaker to be silly at best
what
Kingmaker, for all its flaws, has some of the best combat encounter design in years (particularly the way it tackles the issue of the environment scaling to the player) and great replayability can be derived from tinkering with the character builder system.
>for divinity to not even attempt at having any sort of depth in its story, etc.
The comedic bits of Divinity have stuck since the 2002 game. Baldur's Gate was silly all the time.

[Anonymous No.5583019]

>>5582804
>Kingmaker, not knowing if they want to copy warcraft or Baldur's gate
>warcraft
what are you on about?
Kingmaker is the best of the "IE spiritual successors" by a long shot

[Anonymous No.5583070]

>>5578313
>Blobbers are never coming back, old man.

[Anonymous No.5583080]

>>5583070
>he doesn't know about Grimoire
dumb sape

[Anonymous No.5583117]

>>5582917
>Baldur's Gate was silly all the time.
You're trying way too hard
Always this black-and-white guy who can't into nuance.
You can pretend that BG is silly all you want, you'd have a very hard time demonstrating it.
The story in BG might not have the greatest revolutionary scenario ever made, but it's one of the most serviceable story ever put in a crpg because it leaves a lot of space to the player's interpretation of his character motivations. It also has amazing lore and every single place you visit in Shadow of Amn and Throne of Bhaal oozes SOUL through every orifice.
Contrary to most story heavy rpg who think adding a lot of dialogue options and walls of text that ultimately amount to nothing (because computer games have to have a railroading DM) is the pinnacle of immersive story telling.
Kingmaker on the other hand doesn't really belong to that category, but puts you in a position where the only way the story makes sense is if your character is crippingly retarded.

As for combat encounter design, PoE has alright combat too, divinity has interesting combat as well, all of them have some degree of replayability, that's not the point, it takes much more than that to make a good game, especially a good crpg. Most importantly, having fun shit to do.
Take something like Arcanum. It doesn't have as good a combat system as BG, nor as good a story as PST, yet it's still better than anything that came out in the last 10 years because it's fun and imaginative. PoE and Kingmaker, even Divinity I'd argue, don't have anything as cool as a full charisma party in Arcanum, or the absolutely ridiculous stuff you can pull late game in BG.
>>5583019
I exaggerate with "copying" warcraft, but the artsyle and atmosphere sometimes remind me heavily of nu-blizzard. It's bland.

[Anonymous No.5583168]

>>5583117
Also one thing that gets butchered by pretty much every crpg since the golden days of the infinty engine is character writing.
Every single somewhat developped character in BG or PST, is cool. And interesting. Even the ones you hate. And that's not limited to the ie, contemporary stuff like Arcanum, Fallout, Desperados all have great character writing not only as a great storytelling tool, but an amazing argument for replayability beyond pure gameplay.

No other crpg since then has had a cast of characters at least half as good as BG2.

[Anonymous No.5583169]

>>5583080
>implying I don't
I can never get a straight answer on its quality so I'm not spending $40 on it.

[Anonymous No.5583186]

>>5583117
>ignores seeping comic relief through every orifice of the game
>Minsc and Jan fucking around as contrast for your soul being stolen
>constant puns and jokes
>explicit ability to play as the most sarcastic wisecracking asshat imaginable
yeah super serious, never silly at all
>As for combat encounter design, PoE has alright combat too, divinity has interesting combat as well, all of them have some degree of replayability, that's not the point, it takes much more than that to make a good game, especially a good crpg. Most importantly, having fun shit to do.
Which those games have in spades. P:K lets you maintain your own stronghold in ways BG2's strongholds pale in comparison, DivOS2 is sheer fun through co-op and interactibility (setting oil on fire with a fireball spell, breaking doodads to change the environment, etc.). Your criterium for a "good game" is unattainable.
>Take something like Arcanum. It doesn't have as good a combat system as BG, nor as good a story as PST, yet it's still better than anything that came out in the last 10 years because it's fun and imaginative.
It's also one of the shittiest games to actually play outside of the character generation screen that is rich and promising and then dumps you into a long, buggy, unfinished game that, like every Troika game, carries itself solely on specific promise, atmosphere, and attention to detail in worldbuilding and interaction.
>full Charisma party
playing a minionmancer in Arcanum is literally having everything done for you while you Speech-check to win. It's admittedly much more servicable than the system in Fallout 2, but let's not kid ourselves.
>actually relying on SOUL as a descriptor
This is meaningless. Especially if you extend it through Throne of Bhaal which is universally considered rushed, the lead writer felt the need to create a mod that imposes a "finished" version of the story (that's what Ascension is) and which basically amounts to a massive boss battle gauntlet.

[Anonymous No.5583213]

>>5583168
>Every single somewhat developped character in BG or PST, is cool. And interesting. Even the ones you hate.
>And that's not limited to the ie
People are already saying the exact same shit about more modern companions like Wrex, Garrus, Morrigan, Alistair, Deekin, Durance, Grieving Mother, Eder, Raul, Jolee Bindo, HK-47, Kaelyn, One of Many. Conversely, you will be hard-pressed to find people considering Valygar, Cernd, Anomen, Lenny, honestly most of the Arcanum cast (except maybe Vergil), or half of the BG1 cast to be particularly likable or interesting.

[Anonymous No.5583574]

>>5578324
Druid: Daemons of the Mind? Insanely fucking bad, my friend!

[Anonymous No.5583705]

>>5582603
it's called Arx Fatalis

[Anonymous No.5584354]

>>5583186
>I play full meme party the game is silly
opinion discarded
>constant puns
see above, also my ass
>carries itself solely on specific promise, atmosphere, and attention to detail in worldbuilding and interaction.
which makes it fun to play and replay, thanks for proving my point, not every rpg has to be about uber minmaxing
>full Charisma party
see above
>universally considered rushed
Watcher's Keep is amazing and one of the most beautiful locations in the entire game, Saradush, Amkethran and most of the boss enclaves are really good. They could be always be bigger, have more shit, but they're great as they are. Yes Gaider made Ascension which adds what, ten, twenty conversations at most? Talk about unfinshed...
What's the big problem with the boss gauntlet mentality? Sure I would have loved a more open area as big as SoA, but it's a fucking expansion.

I really fail to see your overall point though, Baldur's Gate isn't your favorite game, ok cool, and then what?

[Anonymous No.5584707]

>>5578010
Except I bought kingmaker on gog.com and so did others

[Anonymous No.5584757]

>>5584354
>opinion discarded
Half the joinable NPCs in the game are memorable because of their zaniness, stop deflecting. Those elements ARE in the game. Even if you play a group of stuck-ups, you will notice the comic relief. Figuring that DivOS can't stand next to Baldur's Gate is laughable.
>see above, also my ass
BG is definitely the most "humorous" of all the IE games. Compare the somber tone of IWD. BG has Spectator, Melicamp, Portalbendarwinden, Noober, Desharik, Tiax and Dradeel, and a whole bunch of other stuff of this sort
>which makes it fun to play and replay, thanks for proving my point, not every rpg has to be about uber minmaxing
Never said it had to be. Arcanum isn't fun to play because it's clunky, it crashes, and it overstays its welcome past the big "wow" of Tarant due to unfinished locations. It has a ton of flaws and even among fans of "diamonds in the rough" it has detractors.
>see above
It's nice. It's also not revolutionary, and fairly uninteractive in combat for the most part.
>Yes Gaider made Ascension which adds what, ten, twenty conversations at most? Talk about unfinshed...
The version everyone associates with the name is also the one that makes each fight much more engaging, ups the stakes, adds actual choice and consequence when it comes to redeeming Sarevok and lets you ally with Balthazar or bring Bodhi back as a minion. Come the fuck on.
>What's the big problem with the boss gauntlet mentality?
Already written - it has lackluster elements, is rushed at times, at least one developer clearly figured they could have squeezed out more out of it.
My point is to challenge this stupid "soul" argument that means whatever its proponent wants it to mean. Its only purpose is to invoke a "je ne sais quoi" quality that this game has over modern games but without being able to explain it. You don't need to shit on games to do that.

[Anonymous No.5584795]

>>5584354
>I really fail to see your overall point though, Baldur's Gate isn't your favorite game, ok cool, and then what?
It's literally my favourite series of all time. I dug through its files for personal modding, troubleshooting, and even used it for an academic purpose. I've written articles on it for a defunct RPG website. I replay it very often. I lurk /vr/'s IE threads to help people's optimization or modding woes.
You can't possibly accuse me of not liking Baldur's Gate enough, I assure you.
It's just that the game shouldn't be exalted as some unachievable standard. I've hung around enough RPG communities to know that the most curmudgeonic and rigorous of them may even consider Baldur's Gate to be adulterated casualized shit popamole for children, and this is the attitude I see seeping through the cracks of the "but this game had SOUL" argument, except applied to other games. For some, the pinnacle was Dark Heart of Uukrul or Champions of Krynn.
A CGW review of BG1 lamented how it was a flashy, but overall weaker game than its precedessors, completely tone-deaf towards the RPG boom and legacy it was supposed to bring about. The review had its merits, and it's obvious upon re-reading the issue that the actual score was given to the game by editors (BG's adverts were prominent in the magazine) and not by the reviewer herself.
When you claim BG2 is "as close to a perfect game" as possible, you're overlooking its many flaws. For some, perceivable flaws like the relatively low impact of mental stats, general lack of choices and consequences or meaningful evil paths, or even reliance on RTwP to deliver a tactical experience - those are a bigger deal.
There are quite a few things modern games inspired by BG2 have done better than it did. That doesn't take away from BG2's undeniable footprint on the industry. Citing subjective factors like "silliness" or "lack of depth" is not sufficient considering BG2 can be easily accused of such as well.

[Anonymous No.5584847]

>>5584795
Anyway I guess the bottom line is that plenty of the "irredeemable shit tier" games named in this thread are actually very firmly in the Good For What It Is camp and will likely be remembered fondly as under-the-radar classics in a few years.

Also if we're going to keep going on about souls and what not, Pathfinder: Kingmaker's "soul" is evident in how it's a game thrust by Paizo into the hands of some no-name Russian studio, who then proceeded to bluster into an insanely ambitious and faithful rendition of the system (as in, you can tell it was made by actual Pathfinder aficionados), has been renowned for excellent care and depth in terms of combat encounters, verisimilitude in chargen, non-linearity in approaching challenges and some of its other unique mechanics (the building of the kingdom), and is gathering enough renown to be considered cult in spite of being a broken, battered piece of shit with major stability problems on release. If that isn't reminiscent of pic related's library, I'm not sure what is.

Also play the game in the OP if you're this much into "souls", because a Baldur's Gate love letter done in this particular style of art, created as a passion project of a married couple of nerds should be right up your valley.

[Anonymous No.5584997]

>>5583117
>Arcanum
>yet it's still better than anything that came out in the last 10 years
funniest post in this thread

[Anonymous No.5585914]

>>5577474
>UI at a much higher res that the visuals
No way fag

[Anonymous No.5586221]

>>5584795
>When you claim BG2 is "as close to a perfect game" as possible, you're overlooking its many flaws. For some, perceivable flaws like the relatively low impact of mental stats, general lack of choices and consequences or meaningful evil paths, or even reliance on RTwP to deliver a tactical experience - those are a bigger deal.
I don't, but you're just listing things that would make it even better in your opinion.
Mine is that no crpg no matter how hard you look managed to succeed in as many areas as BG did, making it as close to a perfect game as possible because no one will ever make a perfect game.
You can throw a buttload of labels that neither you nor the thousands of more or less hack critics have spent any minute justifying beyond "other game did that", while overlooking all the things that did not work in the games they're using to criticize BG.
>There are quite a few things modern games inspired by BG2 have done better than it did.
Yet none have succeeded simultaneously in as many areas as BG did, my point exactly.
>silliness" or "lack of depth" is not sufficient considering BG2 can be easily accused of such as well.
Everything can be easily accused of being anything, it's just putting a label on it and throwing a couple examples of dialogue or anything to support it while ignoring everything else.
My point in the end is not that BG is some unachievable standard, it is that no game came close to succeeding in as many areas as it did. They take the template, add some quirks, sometimes get lost within these or the template.
Baldur's Gate, and most of the "classic" RPG whatever their decade of release is, were not born from such a thought process.

[Anonymous No.5586228]

>>5584997
thanks

[Anonymous No.5586808]

>>5586221
>Mine is that no crpg no matter how hard you look managed to succeed in as many areas as BG did
And I'm explicitly telling you plenty of areas in which it has massive shortcomings that other games have succeeded in. Many people will consider Fallout, P:T, or even something oddball like DA:O (particularly the younger generation of grognards) to be the game that "has come as close to perfection as possible", often bagatelizing actual flaws as "well yeah but look at the big picture".
>You can throw a buttload of labels that neither you nor the thousands of more or less hack critics have spent any minute justifying beyond "other game did that"
Oh, but I have given plenty of justification, simply refer to my older posts. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to conceive exactly how the Pathfinder game has anything to do with Warcraft.
>Everything can be easily accused of being anything, it's just putting a label on it and throwing a couple examples of dialogue or anything to support it while ignoring everything else.
This would be a very appropriate assessment of your statements regarding modern cRPG experiences, indeed. About the only thing I could find myself agreeing on is that DivOS is a humorous game (owing to a 16 year long tradition of Larian), but not that it "lacks depth" for this reason, and that PoE's writing is bloated.
>They take the template, add some quirks, sometimes get lost within these or the template.
Now that's something I can agree on for the most part, but mostly in relation to PoE, and I still enjoyed that game ("Good For What It Is").

[Anonymous No.5586906]

>>5584795
>A CGW review of BG1 lamented how it was a flashy, but overall weaker game than its precedessors, completely tone-deaf towards the RPG boom and legacy it was supposed to bring about.

Never read any reviews back in the day, the demo was enough to sell me on it, but as someone who actually owns most of SSI's 90s RPG output, and was a big fan of D&D going into Baldur's Gate, that reads like something out of bizarro land or someone talking about a completely different game. Baldur's Gate is objectively deeper than any of them by a large margin.

[Anonymous No.5586917]

>>5586906
Look up Scorpia's review of Baldur's Gate for a trip to the past. Scorpia was so infamous she was put into Might and Magic 3 as an ugly monster after panning MM2.

[Anonymous No.5587484]

>>5586917
Mistress Scorpia was hard to please.

[Anonymous No.5588598]

>>5582565
>Not made with infinity engine
If it's not made with infinity engine, it's not a CRPG.

[Anonymous No.5588613]

>>5588598
t. bg fanboy

[Anonymous No.5589661]

>>5577474
>>5578007
>Everyone in the thread talks about only IE Bioware games and Fallout
>Everything rebooted is AD&D BG ruleset and Real-Time with pause combat just modified slightly

And you wonder why the CPRG genre is dead.
Not one mention of a turn-based rpg in the entire thread.

[Anonymous No.5589742]

>>5589661
I just want a blobber revolution man.

[Anonymous No.5589763]

>>5589661
ToEE, Age of Decadence, Divinity, Fallout, Wasteland 2, Arcanum (...sorta) have all been namedropped. Wasteland 2 and DivOS are very recent turn-based games. PoE2 just got a shoehorned in turn-based mode. We had a very broad thread about RPGs so far, it's just one person claiming BG2 was the pinnacle.

[Anonymous No.5589780]

>>5589661
>why the CPRG genre is dead.
it's so "dead" there are way more cRPGs coming out in all sorts of flavors than there were, say, in the dark ages of late BioWare and mediocre games like Two Worlds or Risen, just a few years ago. If you claim the genre is dead you're simply not following any news and love masturbating to your oldschool gamer cred.

[Anonymous No.5589981]

>>5579320
>>5578303
>>5589661
This, RTwP is awful, it only makes the game better when your combat is so lackluster and uninteresting that you would need to fast forward through it. Which makes sense in some games were non spell casters only had one feature. At that point, the combat should be fixed. It shouldn't be that hard to expand on newer rulesets. Div did so well because it actually tried to do more, for better or worse.

[Anonymous No.5590009]

>>5589981
>This, RTwP is awful, it only makes the game better when your combat is so lackluster and uninteresting that you would need to fast forward through it.
Which makes playing turn-based games that still insist on throwing a lot of trash your way a chore. Fallout 2 can be a drag sometimes due to this (and it's not like it has amazing combat) and Wiz8 needs a speedpatch to be playable.

IE combat is still engaging even with RTwP in place though.

[Anonymous No.5590030]

>>5589661
>he hasn't played Shroud of the Avatar (rebooted ultima) kickstarted by Richard Garriott himself
where have you been?

[Anonymous No.5590068]

>>5590030
>where have you been?
Not him, but presumably he hasn't been playing a ripoff scam where customers are paying for their virtual furniture ripped straight from default Blender assets and nothing ever happens.

[Anonymous No.5590090]

>>5583117
>SOUL
Opinion disregarded. Learn to have original thoughts, /v/ermin.

[Anonymous No.5590180]

>>5590090
>dismiss an opinion because of wording
>hurr l2original thoughts durr
lmao, fuck off try hard

[Anonymous No.5590352]

>>5584795
>even reliance on RTwP to deliver a tactical experience
it's sort-of true.
BG devs didn't have to design their own game rules or basic content (spells, monsters, etc) they just used AD&D 2e. As a consequence though, they had to adapt it to work seamlessly with their RTS-esque game engine, and hopefully solve some of the tedium that sometimes crops up in fully turn-based adaptations of D&D as, without the human interaction, turns where nothing changes and nothing happens but a dice roll can get very boring to play. BG's RTwP system lets you skim over that crap.

In theory, a game designed from the ground-up to be a computer RPG shouldn't need RTwP. Either you go fully turn-based or fully real-time and make sure the rules and content are balanced for one or the other.

>>5589981
>RTwP is awful
Personally, I'm rarely impressed with RTwP haters and rarely see anything but lazy half-assed criticism. I would love to see some good in-depth criticism of the RTwP in Baldur's Gate or other game but it's usually just bland dick-waving.
>It shouldn't be that hard to expand on newer rulesets.
In theory. In practice you throw out a proven system with tons of content like D&D 2e or 3e and you take a shot at making something better from scratch. Maybe you succeed and maybe you don't.

[Anonymous No.5590385]

>>5582804
>No, in my opinion it's just that crpg in the current year are a niche market
To be fair, it always was. Baldur's Gate is an exception to the rule in terms of popularity. The niche just seemed larger in the 80s and early 90s because the home computer market was smaller and classic cRPGs did have a much larger share of the RPG fans than they do now.

[ok !HiT0TWJpS2 No.5590386]

>>5577474

[Anonymous No.5590435]

>>5582751
>implying jackson pollock is bad

[Anonymous No.5590440]

>>5582751
>implying Jackson Pollock is not important

[Anonymous No.5590486]

>>5590435
>>5590440
A Jew funded postmodern shitstain isn't important.

[Anonymous No.5590579]

>>5590440
By the same people who claim DuChamp was important.

[Anonymous No.5590652]

>>5590486
So you're one of THOSE types, eh?

[Anonymous No.5590676]

>>5577474
No. CRPGs are stuck in an awkward middle ground between a bunch of more specialized genres that got more popular.

They've got too much complexity and too little spectacle for JRPG fans, they're too slow for WRPG fans, and too long and small in scope for RTS fans

[Anonymous No.5590692]

Baldur's Gate is garbage.
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/scorpia-and-baldurs-gate-a-discussion-from-2006.109632/

[Anonymous No.5590856]

>>5590676
>They've got too much complexity and too little spectacle for JRPG fans
Modern JRPG fans are hooked on spectacle.
Before the late 90s, the difference was more pacing and writing style. JRPGs were written more like anime or manga, with concise dialog supported by visual storytelling and sprite acting (this is not the same as "spectacle"). CRPGs were written more like tabletop campaign modules or novels, with detailed dialog and lots of text.
>They've got too much complexity
One issue with crpgs (from a jrpg standpoint) is specifically the upfront complexity and demand that a player create a character without playing the game or having any idea what the gameplay will be like. Before the player can even step foot in the game world, they have to make a bunch of decisions they'll have to live with for the rest of the playthrough and they have no idea which (if any) of those decisions will turn out to be important.

[Anonymous No.5591026]

>>5577474
It's a trash genre that died for a reason. Nobody wants this shit.

[Anonymous No.5591047]

>>5589661
Aren't the recent CRPGs that people circlejerk over bland nu-Com clones (i.e., the shadowrun games)

[Anonymous No.5591273]

>>5590352
The main criticism I've seen levied at it is that during any encounter where tactics and micro make the difference between victory or defeat, the system ends up being stopwatch-style turn-based anyway. Generally, critics believe that RTwP can only work with AI character scripting, which however is a) a chore to set up manually; b) not good enough to be left on auto.
I'll say this, RTwP does make dealing with trash mobs easier, however the only place RTwP truly shines in is squadtac games; however most of them either follow the JA2 formula very closely, or are exceedingly buggy (being made by like one Russian dude in his apartment).

[Anonymous No.5591613]

>>5591273
>Generally, critics believe that RTwP can only work with AI character scripting
Custom character scripting was really, extraordinarily good in Dragon Age: Origins. It's just as well, because Warriors and Rogues got a lot more combat abilities to use, which means more micromanagement.

[Anonymous No.5591760]

>>5591273
Too much reliance on AI scripting kind of defeats the purpose of a party micromanagement game imo.
Lots of 3D RPGs seem to do the AI henchman thing as the game is really designed for controlling a single character.

[Anonymous No.5592350]

Prove her wrong faggots>>5590692

[Anonymous No.5592386]

>>5592350
>Prove her wrong faggots
Why?

[Anonymous No.5592582]

>>5592350
If you are too stupid to articulate your own opinion and need to link someone elses with no commentary, at least link to the actual fucking substantial criticism not some dumbass rpgcodex gossip thread tangentially about her with nothing but a few screenshotted snippets.
Holy shit what a retard.

[Anonymous No.5592585]

>>5592582
>>5592386
Baldur's Gate is popamole garbage. RPG fans hated it at the time. Stay mad Bioware cucks

[Anonymous No.5592646]

>>5592585
>Stay mad Bioware cucks
What are you on about anon?

[Anonymous No.5593172]

>>5592585
>popamole
found the rpg codex faggot

[Anonymous No.5594026]

>>5577474
If you are a game developer, don't try to pander to this shithole of a website. At this point, /vr/ is the same as /v/. If some of you fags decided to make a game, stay as far away from this website as possible. These faggots have nothing of value to say.

[Anonymous No.5594164]

>>5590856
>if any
>mfw RoA

[Anonymous No.5594204]

>>5594026
>pander
If you're a game developer, or any kind of 'creative' type, the last thing you should do is pander to anyone you fucking retard.
I don't know who the cocksucking attention seeking tranny in your pic is, but he got all he deserved. Should have thought about making a good game before thinking about getting sweet sweet (you)s and a circlejerk of retarded mongoloids praising him for doing nothing but what they want.
What a stupid egotistical whore.

As for you, if you are still here despite thinking that nothing of value is ever said here, you're even more retarded and cancerous than the fucktard you screencapped.
And if you are that fucktard, you deserve nothing but being the butt of the joke for the rest of your life. If you want a circlejerk of "positivity", fuck off anywhere else.

[Anonymous No.5594370]

>>5594026
>wahhh all I wanted to do was get free advertising, free market surveys, and then make money off them why are you so mean

[Anonymous No.5595703]

>>5582603

what was wrong with this one? didn't play the original games, and i thought this would have been a good point to jump into the series

[Anonymous No.5595749]

Hard to imagine a full-blown CRPG revival, those cost a lot of money or a lot of work to do, a lot of fans will always compare newer games to the classics.

Yeah, imagine an indie developer or an AAA developer making a world with the same size or interactivity as the Ultima or Infinity Engine games at a time where making games costs a lot of money and there are things like voice acting to worry about for a crowd that maybe doesn't justify that, and let's not even talk about indie developers who would need various years to make games like that and even then there would be people complaining they look the same as the old RPG's.

Honestly, the CRPG community is one of the hardest to please, and what makes it worse is that they really want big titles like there used to be in the old days even though there is no reason for anyone to do them.

Like, someone mentioned dungeon crawlers being small and all that, but, Wizardry 7 and 8 as well as the Might And Magic games are mostly remembered by actual CRPG fans, many fans of dungeon crawlers though, particularly Japan, actually genuinely prefer smaller worlds or a game where you really just go through dungeons rather than an open world game.

It's kinda weird, but old CRPG fans have the misfortune of having classics to compare games to in a world where indie and AAA devs don't have the budget or time to make games that big anymore, they are a niche audience and what a lot of people want in RPG's nowadays are things they don't care about like, you know, dungeon crawlers with a big world ala Wizardry 8.

[Anonymous No.5595945]

>>5595703
You know how people criticize VtM:B, Arcanum or some other diamonds in the rough (maybe even FNV) for being buggy, unfinished, missing assets, cut, crashing a lot? Pick any RPG you really like in spite of it requiring a little bit of patience to get through. Got it?

Well this game is several tiers lower to the point of being borderline unplayable. Horrid optimization issues as the game taxes the shit out of any halfway decent CPU in spite of not looking particularly good, textures sometimes missing, glitches that allow you to noclip through floors, and it's unstable as fuck. The levels are mostly empty and the encounters repetitive.

Even the ending cinematic is bugged and doesn't show up.

Play Arx Fatalis instead if you want a stand-alone game in this vein.

[Anonymous No.5595962]

>>5595945

i'll give it a go, thanks for the tip. shame about kickstarter, i wish more quality rpgs came out of it.

[Anonymous No.5595979]

>>5595962
Don't, unless you mean Arx Fatalis, Underworld Ascendant is just a horrible game that is not worth playing, seriously.

Just pick any other modern CRPG, i swear they are all better than Ascendant, because that game is just freaking awful.