» Mon Feb 01, 2016 9:23 am So it's occurred to me now... There's a huge amount of contention about the definition of "Roleplaying game". It's a subject that is highly controversial, and something many people disagree very strongly on. Which to me, implies that, perhaps it is possible, that this is all a huge misunderstanding, caused by certain gaming genre labels being overtly simplistic in todays world. I'm not saying the term "Roleplaying game" is meaningless, rather I'm just saying, it feels to me like this is another case of current official labeling not being complicated enough at the moment, to accurately describe many games.
The issue with the term "RPG" is it being more subjective than say, the term Platform game or First Person Shooter. What a lot of it comes down to I believe, is genre hybrids making accurately labeling a games genre more difficult, and I personally feel, that we just don't have enough official genre labels around yet, to accurately describe each game that is of some sort of hybrid genre. In short, at this point, I don't think there's really objectively such a thing as a "Roleplaying game".
I also don't think gaming companies themselves are really at fault here either, as they are simply using genre labels that are currently well known- IE more likely if you ask me, games at a higher risk of simply having old fashioned genre descriptions being inaccurate. Some personal examples behind a spoiler tag for length, not for actual spoilers.
I have some personal examples under the spoilers thing, though it's just a quick personal attempt to make new genres that may be messy. I don't think my own personal examples would necessarily be the best example, they are just there as first basic thoughts on all this.
Spoiler
Dragon Age: Semi-Turn based, as you don't have to pause in combat though it's extremely encouraged.
KOTOR/KOTOR 2: C-Skill Centered, QS-Loot E-Third Person Multi-Character Semi-Turn Based Party Linear-Exploration L-Fantasy Science Fiction RPG.
L-Fantasy Science Fiction, meaning science fiction with light fantasy elements- like Starwars in general, with Science H-Fantasy meaning mostly fantasy with light sci-fi elements- akin to say Morrowind especially.
Pokemon Red and Blue suggested new genre: Absolute turn based Multi-Character Animal-Centric RPG. Multi-Character being different from Party Based as Party Based is using more than 1 character at a time.
Super Mario RPG suggested new genre: Absolutely turn based party isometric RPG.
Daggerfall: Character skill very important like Morrowind though I can find it difficult comparing the two in that regard.
Suggested New Genre: EC-Skill Centered F-Verti-Centric QS-Loot RPG E-First Person H-Text Action RPG. H-Text meaning heavily text based.
EC-Skill Centered meaning extremely character skill centered, C-Skill centered meaning a more moderate emphasis on Character skill than what KOTOR or Daggerfall or Morrowind had, and LC-Skill centered meaning a much lighter emphasis on character skill or ability than said games.
Morrowind: Real time first person, though character skill outweighs player skill dramatically in importance, in part because of mechanics many people find frustrating though some people also like as well, hence the EC genre.
Suggested new genre: EC-Skill Centered H-Text Steampunk F-Verti-Centric Item-Hunter S-C M-First Person Science H-Fantasy Action RPG. C-Skill standing for Character Skill, and, the genre being defined as the character skill almost completely outweighing player skill in importance. F-Verti-Centric standing for the game having a lot of vertical exploration. Item-Hunter meaning a loot system with hand placed loot not directly tied to quests, an Item-Hunter game being defined as a game where at level 1 you can get get some top quality items via exploration, with no quests attached.
M-First person means mostly first person and designed with that in mind, E-First Person means exclusive first person. Verti-Centric/F-Verti-Centric having a different meaning than all out Platformer however.
The difference between F-Verti-Centric and Verti-Centric is, F-Verti-Centric stands for total freedom of vertical mobility, compared to say, the Thief or Zelda series which have more vertical exploration than Oblivion or Skyrim, but still not the total vertical freedom of Morrowind.
Oblivion: Real time first person, though the whole world itself scaling so much, feels unusual enough for an RPG to own it's own genre.
Suggested new genre: Scaled M-First H-Voiced Person Rag-Doll Action S-C C-Skill QS-Loot Fantasy RPG, Scaled meaning the whole world levels with you. QS-Loot meaning all the best artifacts, and so on are all related to questing in some way or another. Ragdoll of course meaning ragdoll mechanics. H-Voiced standing for heavily voiced.
I think any TES game with Dwemer machines may be classified as Steampunk... I don't remember Oblivion having any however though, so I think in a sense Skyrim and Morrowind may be Steampunk to some degree where as Oblivion may lack that genre.
Skyrim: Also real time first person, though the lower emphasis on character skill in comparison can make it feel like a different type of RPG.
Suggested new genre: Semi-Scaled M-First H-Voiced Person C-Skill Steampunk Rag-Doll S-C Action QS-Loot Fantasy RPG. Semi-Scaled meaning there is some scaling albeit not to the extreme degree of Oblivion.
Zelda/Planetside/Call Of Duty/Dishonored: Generally not considered to be roleplaying games, however there is character stat development throughout these games.
Suggested new genre: Dev-Stat H-Action Games- standing for developing stat heavy action games, as in the characters stats or abilities at least a little bit develop throughout the the game- not dramatically enough to enter RPG territory, but still enough to warrant a genre label to define them differently, than games with zero stat or ability development at all. Heavy action meaning heavily action, not stat heavy.
Dishonored Genre: Verti-Centric E-First person, H-Stealth H-Voiced, S-C, Steampunk Action Adventure Dev-Stat H game. E first person meaning no third person options. H-Stealth meaning heavy stealth oriented.
Zelda Ocarina Of Time/Zelda Majora's Mask: Verti-Available Dev-Stav H-Action Single Character Puzzle Adventure Game. S-C- standing for Single playable Character Verti-Available means not vertical centric qiote but still some degree of vertical exploration more so than Skyrim or Oblivion or most shooters or most Isometric RPGs.
Sonic Adventure Genre: Verti-Centric Action Multi-Character Platformer Adventure game.
Deus Ex: I love the Deus Ex series don't get me wrong, they are amongst my favorite game, though I do think a new genre could better describe them.
Deus Ex Suggested new Genre: Verti-Centric Cyber-Punk Science Fiction H-Stealth E-First Person Shooter Single Character Dev-Stat LC-Skill H-Voiced H-Action Games
I remember HR Deus Ex was heavily voiced- not 100% sure about Invisible War it's been so long since I played it, though I think the Deus Ex series according to memory have always been quite heavily voiced.
Halo/Halo 2: Science Fiction First Person Shooter Multi-Character H-Voiced H-Vehicle Game. H-Vehicle meaning heavily vehicle based.
Perfect Dark 64: Science Fiction, First Person Shooter, Multi-Character, H-Voiced H-Action L-Vehicle Game. Has only like a single vehicle you can hardly ever used, hence L for Light Vehicle.
Goldeneye 64: Modern First Person Shooter, Single-Character, H-Text game.
Call Of Duty: Modern First Person Shooter Dev-Stat H Single Character H-Voiced Shooter. (Note this is partially guessing as I never played that game).
Planetside 2: Science Fiction, Dev-Stat H, H-Vehicle First Person Shooter. Dev-Stat H cause there's guns, and vehicle/suit upgrades to unlock.
Anyways... That's just my personal attempt to try to simply improve the genre labeling of a bunch of video games I've personally played- and one that I haven't played just cause it's so well known-Call Of Duty. It's my personal belief that the current official genre labels used for video games these days are a bit lacking, and that it could do video games better, to have much longer, more detailed genre labels, and that it would make the genre labeling feel a lot more accurate and grounded in reality.
And maybe I made some mistakes who knows, just me personally attempting to improve genre categories is all.
What do you think? Do you think video games today, and video games of the future, could use a more complicated genre labeling system? Do you think that multi-genre games may be becoming so diverse and complex, that it may be a good idea to introduce a more complex labeling system?
