I'm posting an idea of mine dealing with recent trends in RPG's. This has relevance to Skyrim (as well as DA2, ME2, Fallout, and so on) because people enjoy using the term "dumbing down" lately when referring to new games coming out in recent years. I am going to make a distinction between RPG (Role-Playing Game) and Rpg (Role-playing game).

RPG: This has been the style of rpg for years. This is the table-top, dungeons and dragons knock-off, crawler, stat based, dice-rolling type game. This is what (in ES) Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind where (Morrowind begins the turning point). These games focus on the idea of a game in which the player role-plays, with role-playing being an encompassing term. You pick a character, give them names, backgrounds, classes, attributes, personality, skills, and more and then proceed to play the game as this newly created character. This is imagination at its finest. This is the opportunity to be someone/something else that may even behave completely different than the player themselves might. However, because it is heavily imaginative it requires aid. This aid comes in the form of attributes. These determine how strong, intelligent, wise, etc., that created role is. The player has to be able to say, "The character I created will have a thinner body designed more for speed." The attributes must fit as it describes the character. The player CANNOT suddenly have this role they play start throwing boulders without the strength attribute determining as such. This heavily detailed approach continues on into skills. Every action the role does must be determined by skills. This style of play is where everything about the character is laid out before the player.

Rpg: This is the new trend. This style emphasizes the ROLE in role-playing. What role is that? The player. This is designed to make the player the role. I, as a player, must fill the role of a prophecy, or the heroine, or whatever. It is not about ROLE-PLAYING a character but about playing a ROLE. This is important. This can be found in almost all Bioware games, recent Bethesda games, western developers in general. These games focus on immersion. They are designed to get the player feel like they are that role. It becomes less important to determine everything about a person. The player is already a person. They know how they will respond to quests and problems. They know what skills they have. They know what attributes they have. It becomes less important to have a "Climbing" skill when the player can just do the climbing themselves. There is no reason to dictate that to the player. There is no reason to dictate how intelligent the player's character is when they themselves are already intelligent (not likely but trying to stay positive haha). There is no reason to have a hidden dice roll the chances of a character hitting an opponent when the player is quite capable of aiming and closing distances on the enemy to insure contact. The problem with these type games is that things can easily degenerate into other styles of gaming. Afterall, Halo could be considered an Rpg because the player becomes Master Chief. Yet the difference here is customization. The ability to tailor characters in the game to how players want. Too much customization becomes RPG and less about the player. But too little doesn't allow the player to insert themselves into the game. A proper balance needs to be found in immersion. I personally think that Skyrim, so far, seems to be striking a good balance here. Yes, it seems the days of RPG's are over (people, please quit calling them "true rpg's"). Rpg's are more prevalent. How do we bring players into the game? That is the question rpg developers seem to be asking now. There is experimentation going on. ME2 may have been too much experimentation. There was just enough customization to insert the player into the world, but not enough to define the world.

I personally have developed more into an Rpg player, although I was originally a pure RPG guy. I wanna feel like the world exists, not read the world exists. I am excited for HUD-less. I'm excited for the compass menu system. It keeps the player in the moment. I loved the combat in Oblivion compared to past games, although it still needed work. I'm excited for the combat in DA2. I loved the combat in ME2. Combat seems to be something that has gotten figured out for Rpg's. Now, balancing in other areas need to be figured out.

I'm going to go for the cop-out answer and say blend is best.

Which is why TES is best.

ya know, i think i'm going to have to agree with every single thing you just said.
i was always an RPG guy but i like the ideas and immersion that comes with Rpgs.

(even though you could have said "traditional role playing game" and "immersive role playing")

Was always a RPG guy too, but since I'm about 4000 miles away from my RPG buddies I'll be doing all the Rpg I can get my hands on

Well thank you. And yes I could have said that...but that would take too long haha although why time matters in a long post of mine I'm not sure

So can one have immersion in PnP style?

Good speech.


I'd like to think that I lean towards Rpg while appreciating all the things which RPG's have to bring. What I am looking forward to most, though, is the time when the Rpg testing, balancing, and growth can also settle back to include more content. I feel like there are many things being cut from newer Rpg's, which may be remnants of the RPG genre, but need only be re-worked.
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Rumbly, I think competitive play might not apply so much to this perspective.
I read pvp. :dry:

Yep I was an RPG guy too but Morrowind changed everything for me. We still haven't found a sweet spot yet but I'm eager to see how close Skyrim comes to marrying first person real time interaction with skill based character progression.

I'm sorry. PnP? This is probably blasphemy but I am unfamiliar with the term.



RPG's are kind of like a pool that Rpg's can draw from, yes. I appreciate them as well. Perhaps there may come a time in which they merge completely together. But until then, I think there needs to be a distinction.

So basically RPG = playing the role of the character, using the character's stats.

While Rpg = playing the role of the character, using or ignoring the stats at will (lockpicking minigame, anyone?), as long as the graphics rock and everything is explicitly drawn by the game engine- as long as you're "immersed," as in staring in rapt attention at the movie screen, it's all good.

And people wonder where the "dumbed down" concept comes into picking and choosing whether and when character stats matter, if they ever matter at all?

Wow...just...wow.




"Pen/Pencil and Paper"- it's a term Role-Playing Gamers used in the dim past with games like DnD. (Dungeons and Dragons)

So true.

Alios
I think there is more to being immersed than attention. I was more immersed in the world of MW, because when I thought about doing things it was within the people, conditions, and possibilities of the world. eg, I need to find good alchemy supplies, Balmora has good stock ingredients, but if I go by boat to the Tel towers there is likely more variety, because the Telvanni are more engrossed in the magics.

I didn't find that so much in OB, though it might be considered more of a Rpg and MW an RPG.

You mentioned things I did not, such as graphics. I could care less. Did you not like the lockpicking minigame? I didn't mind it. Felt like I actually was picking a lock. Did you play the Oblivion mod where you were you had to write things down in your journal instead of having it automatically updated? That would be immersion but certainly not "dumbing down." Could you imagine the complaints casual players would have because they forgot to write down where a ruin was or something? How about potion making? Would you prefer going to a menu, clicking on items to mix and then boom you have a potion? Or would you rather have to actually go about placing the items in the MP, pouring the liquid in a vial, etc.? That's immersion but not dumbing down. Kind of like the new woodcutting or smithy options.

Read my posts more carefully please.

Also, I apologize, I have never seen Pen and Paper abbreviated like that before. I used to play D&D btw

I've never had the good fortune of playing an old school RPG so I can only say that I am an Rpg player. Frankly all of this immersion talk and the term Role-playing in general just irks me. I love a good story and I love a game that makes me think, has intense combat, skill building and management like a TES game, that's why I think they are some of the greatest games on the planet. But regardless of what I play, I am always aware that it is just a game ya know? I have tried it in Oblivion, I made a few characters on RP servers when I was younger and played WoW but the whole time it is just too fake for me or something. I am just really too focused that it is a game. I guess I need to just go live in the woods with a few of my blades and my crossbow to get the experience lol.

so... arena, daggerfall, and morrowind were about role-playing and NOT playing the role of the heroes that saved the world in each of them?

...could've fooled me.

i mean, i guess i should've realized i was role-playing as the nerevarine, and not playing the ROLE of the nerevarine, thats just so absent-minded of me! :facepalm:

Did you save the world in each of them? Or did your character? Morrowind was the first TES game where, for me, there was a mixture of feeling like it was still just a character I created and myself.

But I'm not supposed to be picking the lock- my character is. My skill at computer games shouldn't be relevant, only the skill of my character who is actually supposed to be performing the action.



Whereas everything automatically being updated, as was done in the vanilla game, would indeed be dumbing down. The mod is not "the direction Rpgs are going in" but RPGers pushing back against the current industry trend. Trying to make Rpgs back into RPGs.



Just remember, you asked: I personally couldn't care less about casual players, let'em grab their Wiimote and play the latest Mario whatever instead of turning RPGs into Rpgs for "mass appeal."



:rolleyes:

so an Rpg doesn't focus on playing or the game as much as an RPG does?
I'm really confused -_-
you could have come up with something more than just make 2 of the 3 characters lower case

This, in a nut-shell. Atlus is the only developer out there making pure "RPGs" (Etrian Odyssey), and the only developer I would trust to do so properly.

In most cases, mixing is best. I disagree with the OP's assertion that modern RPGs no longer allow us to roleplay a character - I manage to do so quite often, especially in games like Oblivion and Fallout 3. I actively dislike creating an avatar of myself in games such as these, and enjoy having the freedom to craft my character's behavior and personality.

In an RPG yes, your character is supposed to be picking a lock. I agree. And there is nothing wrong with that. Rpg holds that it should be you, the player. There is the difference. Is that so wrong? If the goal of the game is to get a player to feel like they are in the game, would you not agree that this is the better approach?

The journal entry is an example of immersion. I personally do not remember or know who made the mod and, unless you do, neither you or I can determine if it was RPGers pushing back or Rpgers steering a game feature in a more appropriate direction. Yes, automatically updating journals is dumbed down and I preferred having to write my own notes.

I didn't mean to intend Rpg was for casual players. I was using casual players as an example of how some features of Rpg could still be difficult to grasp and that there is nothing wrong with the trend if difficulty of the game is what some players are concerned about.

Think about all of the ancillary features in Arena and Daggerfall that had little to no purpose. Purchasing drinks in taverns, as an example. To me, the OP is spot on in that the earlier games in the series were effectively pen-and-paper DnD adventures. The actual game was mostly just a proxy to help visualize the player's actions and the worlds around them. In particular, there's those lovely "description text" messages that appear whenever you near a dungeon in Daggerfall. They serve to provide a strong sensory background for the setting and help you to visualize the world for beyond what it really is on your monitor. Arena and Daggerfall more or less are narrated by the game itself, whereas in Morrowind and Oblivion the cast and your own character do most of the movements that occur in the world.

Personally I enjoy both the oldschool and the newer role playing games. I think that there should be a blend of player involvement and character involvement, but really we can't be for certain which is desired. When I play TES, I base many of my decisions in the game off of my own personal preferences - the Bretons and the Dunmer match me most in temperament, and in real life I have strong regrets about killing wildlife. At the same time, I fabricate many character-specific attributes for the playing experience, such as playing as a character who has sworn to never use Daedric weaponry and a character who may be easily swayed into killing others. It's just a matter of how much escapism you're looking for and I can't really say RPGs or Rpgs are in any way superior over the other.

What matters most to me is being able to do whatever I want, even if that means going to the extreme now and then. People argue that Morrowind's armor system was prone to exploitation because you coudl place so many enchantments on yourself, but at the same time that's kind of what defined the strategic nature of the game and made you feel you were truly tied to your own character's situation - not how quickly you could mash the keys on your keyboard and spam fireballs.

What immersed me about Morrowind and even Daggerfall was the world. Not even thematically, so much as they both felt dynamic. Rumors, assassination attempts, faction reputation, you always had a feeling, regardless of how far along you were in the world, that there were things going on in the background. That is what I define as immersion, not how many motions I need to make with my mouse in order to successfully nock an arrow or swing a sword.

Hmmmm I see your point, and agree. I very much prefer building my character slowly and focusing on the stats versus not caring about them (being "immersed"). However I don't know that Bethesda actually views immersion in that way either - Oblivion I felt did a good job overall at this, especially with a DarNified view that greatly improved the interface for stats and other such detail (IMHO, I know thats arguable to many). But in the task of combining many of RPG aspects with a modern graphical game, an open world and huge content to see and view - it's hard for me to see how BGS got it wrong. I've seen what the Op talks about in some games with the "Rpg" style, but I wouldn't call it an industry trend just yet. The best game in the business in recent years (IMHO) was TES IV, even though alot more energy went into making it "pretty" with lots of modern graphics mechanics and mini-games, I still felt the classic RPG aspects all the time.

I'm sure there are many other points of view here, but I havn't seen anything yet to suggest that Skyrim would be radically different in Style from how Oblivion or Fallout 3 were created - its many of the very same creative genius at work here. From the podcasts and interviews I have heard them spend ample time playing and examining other games for good mechanics that improve gameplay, and while that doesn't directly influence a classic RPG game, I think it will lead to a smoother-playing game that offers a better experience overall. But an "Rpg" that does away with stats altogether? I just don't see it. I suspect we will get that same BGS flavor from Oblivion, improved, expanded.

Miax

I'm not sure I agree with your terms, but I understand what you're trying to say.

The difference is that in one, you create & guide a character, you aren't playing a character (traditional by the numbers), but in TES you become that character, theatrics style, therefore it requires more input from you. You are in the world, but not you exactly, a you as you would have been, had you been evil/good/neutral whatever, had you been a nord/elf/man/beast.

In that sense you are getting closer to what roleplaying is, because now you are playing a role, a different you.

You can get a better picture of it imagining a character played by different actors, the characteristics are the same, but the way the role is played is different, because the actors bring in their own "version" of that character.

I'm not supposed to attack; my character is.
I'm not supposed to run about; my character is.
I'm not supposed to talk to NPCs; my character is.
I'm not supposed to loot chests; my character is.
I'm not supposed to press ANYTHING on my keyboar/joystick; my character is supposed to do it all.

So, it turns out that playing a true RPG is actually watching a movie!

U C WAT I DID THAR

Yes, there are more things that actions that define immersion. Lore, events, music, variety of scenery, and so much more are huge contributors as well. Oblivion failed in immersion in many of those aspects. The world had little lore and major events going on that defined the world. Some of the music was forgettable. The scenery was GREAT...for the first few minutes. It succeeded in many aspects of bringing the player in through actions tho. And what about having certain things focused more on that others? Would Oblivion be considered more immersive if it kept the gameplay elements but had more inclusions of Lore built into the world? Or if the Counts made moves against eachother in attempts to consolidate their power? Or if the Deadra were actually a threat? Definitely.

As for your snippet about Morrowind, I agree. Again, the key is customization. One thing that allows you to customize a character in MW was the ability to over-enchant things to your liking. The freedom to do so. That, again, brings more immersion. Why should we be limited in what we want to do with gameplay mechanics, like spell crafting?