» Sat Dec 10, 2011 8:08 pm Uuhhhh . . . what?
Alright. I'll bite: explain how DIABLO2 is one of the best-selling games of all time, seeing as it's 50% dungeon crawling.
Let's go back in time together: classic "Blue" and "Gold" boxes were all dungeon crawls, as were the ARKANIA, WIZARDRY series. THE BARD'S TALE. Then the "second" generation: HEXEN, LANDS OF LORE, MIGHT AND MAGIC 6-8, DAGGERFALL and the elephant in the room: DIABLO (99.99% dungeon crawling). The new stuff: DUNGEON SIEGE, SACRED, heck, even BALDUR'S GATE had 50% of its gameplay in dank corridors, rooms and caves. And what is BIOSHOCK if not one immense dungeon crawl?
For the last 2 years, the best selling D&D pen and paper products - after the core books - have been adventures reprints of old (literally decades old!) modules. The best selling of those are the biggest ones: B2 - KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS; I6 - CASTLE RAVENLOFT; S2 - WHITE PLUME MOUNTAIN; L3 - DEEP DWARVEN DELVE . . . T1-4 - THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL was named 4th greatest adventure of all time. Ever played that? It's frakking HUGE. #3: S1 - TOMB OF HORRORS, #2 is the aforementioned I6 and #1 is G1-3 QUEEN OF SPIDERS.
Third most popular D&D item, sales-wise? Dungeon tiles.
"most every gamer" ?
Alright. I'll bite: explain how DIABLO2 is one of the best-selling games of all time, seeing as it's 50% dungeon crawling.
Let's go back in time together: classic "Blue" and "Gold" boxes were all dungeon crawls, as were the ARKANIA, WIZARDRY series. THE BARD'S TALE. Then the "second" generation: HEXEN, LANDS OF LORE, MIGHT AND MAGIC 6-8, DAGGERFALL and the elephant in the room: DIABLO (99.99% dungeon crawling). The new stuff: DUNGEON SIEGE, SACRED, heck, even BALDUR'S GATE had 50% of its gameplay in dank corridors, rooms and caves. And what is BIOSHOCK if not one immense dungeon crawl?
For the last 2 years, the best selling D&D pen and paper products - after the core books - have been adventures reprints of old (literally decades old!) modules. The best selling of those are the biggest ones: B2 - KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS; I6 - CASTLE RAVENLOFT; S2 - WHITE PLUME MOUNTAIN; L3 - DEEP DWARVEN DELVE . . . T1-4 - THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL was named 4th greatest adventure of all time. Ever played that? It's frakking HUGE. #3: S1 - TOMB OF HORRORS, #2 is the aforementioned I6 and #1 is G1-3 QUEEN OF SPIDERS.
Third most popular D&D item, sales-wise? Dungeon tiles.
"most every gamer" ?
Diablo? Yes, it's a hack and slash dungeon crawler. It's also isometric. You know, isometric, like FO1 and FO2, the perspective that people in the FO3 camp have deemed as far too old and archaic to enjoy.
Dungeon crawlers work, and can be fun, in top-down or isometric perspectives (even text adventures sometimes) because it's a lot harder for you to lose your orientation. When translated to a FPS perspective, suddenly I find myself getting disoriented, lost, and most of all, bored, very quickly, because I'm forced to just trudge through miles and miles of corridors with identical textures. I had to keep pulling up my minimap every minute or so just to get through some of the vaults in NV.
I hate Bethesda-style dungeon crawling. A lot. It was boring in Oblivion, it was boring in FO3. I had the option not to do so in NV, for the most part. So I didn't.
Can dungeon crawlers be fun? Yes, if done properly. I'm looking forward to Elder Scrolls V because I think by then Bethesda will have improved on the terrible dungeons we've withstood so far. Really, what exactly was exciting about going through endless iterations of the same three dungeons in Oblivion?
