http://gamerant.com/...ing-dyce-68478/

This is a very good article discussing the state of RPGs these days.

I strongly hate all the dumbing down that keeps on happening in my favorite PC genre. I dislike how much the RPG genre has changed over the last 5-10 years going from deeply complex games with loads of character customization and classes to gradually become simpler and simpler to appeal to people who simply dont like reading manuals or learning how to play the games themselves. I want my favorite genre to remain as strong, deep, complex and completely satisfying to play as it used to be in the past. If there is one reason why 'PC gaming is dying', it is purely due to the dumbing down greed that a lot of developers have developed a strong hunger for in order to try and make games that will appeal and sell to casual FPS gamers. We hardly ever see this level of dumbing down in the PC Strategy game genre, most games in that genre have maintained what makes them great and they retain their appeal to their fans. But the RPG genre for some completely bizarre reason keeps on getting more and more simplified as time goes on, that it raises a very valid point - What will the RPG genre be like 10 years from now? At the rate that they seem to keep on going, I hate to have to imagine that we are literally going to end up with simple FPS games with bows for pistols, swords for knives, and spells for rifles with completely linear stories and games that only last around 20-30 hours being marketed as RPGs.

I posted this in the other thread right at the end, so here it is, again:

What do you mean by "PC genre"? Pretty much every single-player RPG that's ever come out of Japan has been console exclusive and plenty of western RPGs are console-ready, as well. It's not my goal to incite some flame war, but I've always primarily been a console gamer and the RPG genre is my favorite... period. On that note, Demon's Souls is one of the most creative games, let alone RPGs, that I've played in a very long while and Dark Souls, its sequel, is coming out later this year. Skyrim's distant predecessors (TES I and TES II) were, arguably, highly unfinished, unpolished and, particularly in the case of Arena, sub-par in comparison to their successors. I'd say Bethesda's only evolved. The money, manpower, and full realization of complete games only really came about after they were past the stage of creating their root RPGs and that's made a great difference. As a console gamer, I'd say it's evolution that the series is now multiplatform and spread so that all may enjoy it in addition to the series being reinvented with each new title... providing variety and showing a willingness to innovate instead of rehash. People may disagree with me, but if a product as buggy and unfinished as TES I or TES II came out today, I would expect it to be, understandably, a financial and critical failure.

I don't care much for what BioWare's doing lately, but then there are also companies like Square Enix. While I disagree with some changes they make, they still show some innovation and have provided some very amazing games. I've got my eye on Final Fantasy Versus XIII, for the future. It looks great and the setting is something completely new to the series, as far as I'm aware (excluding some similarities to Final Fantasy VII's setting). They've been working on the game for four or five years, from what I've heard, and I just have a strong sense it's going to be great. If this thread is meant to have an undertone of PC gaming supposedly, I'm afraid Dark/Demon's Souls and the whole of Square Enix's RPGs won't do much to remedy that, but there is no exclusive link between PC gaming and RPGs... at all. I am indeed upset that you seem to attribute RPGs, my favorite genre, exclusively to PCs. Who came up with that nonsense? :stare:

I'm going to have to beg my brother to let me use his Wii to play Dragon Quest X and I've been waiting far too patiently for a Kingdom Hearts III. I also want a DS to play Dragon Quest IX and some of the newer Pokemon games. To the completely multiplatform side of things, again, I reference Skyrim. Why do you seem to associate Skyrim with the death of RPGs? I've yet to play many RPGs comparable in the actual role-playing part (the freedom, customization, and open-ended aspects) to Bethesda's RPGs and Skyrim's actually moving forward on that, from what I've seen. These new dual-wielding, perk, and mining/cooking/lumber cutting features only seem as though they could make things better and characters more defined than in previous iterations. Bethesda works long and hard on their products and I've never trusted a game company more than I trust Bethesda. They seem like a stellar example of evolution. Each of their games have a different flavor to them. From what I understand, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is shaping up to be a great game, so I have my eye on that. In addition, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning looks quite interesting and, at the very least, Final Fantasy XIII-2 will likely have a good story, well-done characterization, and nice music. BioWare is BioWare, but Bethesda, Square Enix, Big Huge Games, Eidos Montreal, and whoever's making Dark Souls/ made Demon's Souls are showing a lot of modern enthusiasm for innovation in and continuation of the RPG genre with styles that have all evolved to be distinctly different and varied from one another.

While i dont much care for any turn based rpg (Fallout1/2} being the exception. Rpg s all really depend on who makes them and what you actually conidr an rpg. Morrowind to Obivion is the prefect example both epically large/long games but morrorwind was 10x deeper as far as character developement and travel. Obilivon try make the genra more accessable to non RPG fanatics and still deliver 100+ hrs of game play. games like fable on the other hand dont classify as an rpg.

and anything bioware seems to have 2 much Dlc 2 fast where it seems it was just withheld from the game. but thats all of EA's mcdonald like game

Part of it is how terribly defined "RPG" is. How effectively can you argue on the evolution/death of RPG's or their connection to gaming platforms when everyone has a different thing in their mind for what qualifies as an RPG?

I would say that I've never seen a "real" RPG, as I would envision it, on consoles. This is not to criticize the available RPG's, but simply that I disagree with their genre classification. The probable origin of role-playing games are their pen and paper ancestors, like Dungeons and Dragons. That's where things like "chance to hit" come from, as a computer version of rolling dice. It is extremely difficult to the point of near-impossibility to properly represent a game like this on a console or computer, because the AI can't effectively "imagine". There are finite resources in hardware and manpower, and the game can't decide to send your party to the Tower of Lord Surly because that's what it game up with. It can't choose from the hundreds and hundreds of monsters available in the manuals because it's not feasible to model and animate them all, get them to work properly in an electronic setting, give them unique behaviors and proper balancing, and so on. The computer can't account for a creative player coming up with a clever way to utilize their resources if the game hasn't been programmed to do it. In a desktop setting I might throw my sword into a monster's leg and have the party mage shoot lightning at it, but game physics are generally not up to that task yet.

The point of all that being that the average game when people think "JRPG", such as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, is a very different creature from a western RPG like The Elder Scrolls, which is a far toss from the pen and paper variety. That we stuff all these things into "RPG" just causes confusion and annoyance. That we then take every other genre and describe it as having "RPG elements" just makes things worse. I, personally, would stick the genre to just those original types, since they're the ones the genre was built around in the first place. In this case, the PC *is* the basis of these games. Simply put, home computers played games before we had videogame consoles. Graphics were obviously not advanced in these days, and RPG-type games were often the easiest to apply to them; text and choice-heavy don't require major graphics. Physics were not an option, so fighting a monster was a picture with no animation, and numbers and chance to hit. Because RPG's were a major niche to begin with, they were what these computer games were trying to emulate. Because the more complicated games remain difficult to represent in a game (all the advanced physics and particle effects in the world don't make it any easier to make a quest have 100 different endings), a game of that sort remains a niche audience. As consoles came about and became increasingly popular with the overall popularity/mainstreaming of the industry, that sort of game has barely even been attempted on consoles. This is likely the PC origin that people are thinking of.

Then I think what the OP is looking for is about two paces down the board game section of his/her local Walmart. The basis of those games is a table. Video game RPGs are a whole other matter and still have no direct correlation to PCs, alone.

Not quite. PnP games, while far deeper than their more modern relatives, are also well down the line on the scale of convenience. You don't need to make an appointment with several people to sit down and play Oblivion in a week. Alongside its limitations, the computer has advantages in its ability to instantly handle the math portion. A battle that might take 20 minutes of dice-rolling and results-tracking can be finished in a few moments. Everyone has their own preferences and tolerances, but since most people are NOT at the extreme of any scale, most are going to prefer something in between the choices of by-hand and the ease of electronic. These are the games people complain about not being made, or a series moving away from, and they games they fear are "dying". Videogames are a very mainstream thing these days, and popularity rules. As the article mentions, some years ago it was mostly shooters. Currently it's action-RPG's. The issue is, the niche gamers are never the popular kids. As they games they prefer become less profitable and games in general become more expensive to make, those game types are not going to be made. Series that had that type as their basis, are going to move away from it.

All that's really going on is that the genre is changing. Because everyone has their preferences, some are going to like the change and call it "evolution", and some are going to dislike it and call it "dying". As is always the case, both sides are going to completely disregard any legitimate arguments made by the other. Dragon Age 2 is different from the first, Mass Effect 2 is different from the first, Oblivion is different from Morrowind is different from Daggerfall, and I don't know why people involve Skyrim at all since we still know little. The fact of the matter is that yes, a type of gameplay is "dying" because it is unprofitable. If people prefer what it's being replaced with, then they are not heartbroken. Both sides will tend to utterly ignore whether the game in question is good, and just react with "that guy dislikes MY favorite so he's clearly wrong about everything".

*Ignores "PC genre" coment becuase RPGs arent jsut for PC*

Its greed plain and simple, CoD has a huge market, developers arent happy, they want more. RPGs fail pretty badly too becuase they would either need to become an action game or F/TPS to get the same level of thought that people put into CoD, RPGs arent spposed to be dumbed down, devs are catering to people who dont care about RPGs, and they are killing the genre. Instead of making a fps they make a fps/tps/action and try to pass it off as an rpg. They try to keep fans while try (and sually fail) to get more people who dont play rpgs.
We thefans are also to blame, we support them, people hated DA2, yet many still purchased it, vote with your wallet otherwise your complaints fall on deaf ears.
Also lets face it I like Bethesda but they do dumb down rpgs (not enough to put me off though, and even if these games arent considered rpgs I like them (no one does sandbox as good) so do Bioware, we have ourselves to blame (partially) when we hate rpgs being dumbed down, then say these people make the best rpgs, becuase then other devs will copy, or the devs will make it even worse (see DAO transformation to DA2 for an example).

TL:DR
Its greed, and its people supporting dumbing down, by buying the games and defending the people who do it.

You want things to change dont buy it, and call the devs out on what you dont like, if you really must get the game but dont want to support the dumbing down, get the game pre owned you may still like some of the elements still in, but be against it, so this way you can enjoy without supporting what they do.

Dying, most definitely.

I'll just repeat myself again: Friggin' look somewhere else than Western mainstream publishers. hardcoe RPG is not a dying sub-genre, they're just shifting away from being adequately distributable 'relatively AAA' games. It's just the mechanics of every entertainment industry at work.
Look into the history of film making - we're about in the early 30s of that now.

That sounds right. I can't argue with your logic on that, so there's nothing I can't comment with. However, I'm curious to know something. How long have people been complaining about games being supposedly dumbing-down while not going into actual specifics? You mentioned Skyrim and I agree with your comment. The same goes for Mass Effect 3, I'd say. Why is anyone complaining about something being dumbed-down when they still know so little about them/haven't experienced them, at all... as if they're just expecting to fail to be able to complain some more?

On another note, I was curious about video game RPG history and researched it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonstomper. I doubt the OP's reference to the past 5-10 years means much towards a PC basis in video game RPGs because these games have been on non-PC platforms for far longer than 5-10 years.

If I wanna role play heavily, I'll play Pathfinder or, even better (if Mongoose would release some sorta GM guide!) Runequest II. If I'm gonna be playin' the video game equivalent, I'm gonna be prepared for linearity.

We're most definitely not in the early '30s' of RPG gaming. The Golden Age of Cinema was a time of great growth for the industry, especially the early 30s. We are most definitely not seeing much growth in the RPG industry. its the demographic and 'audience' thats the major problem IMO, not the game makers per say, other than the evil that is EA/Bioware.

So? The 30s didn't see much growth in expressionist film making either. That's about the closest I can come up with as an equivalent niche. Face it - RPGs are not for everyone. And that's what an industry is about - delivering much to many.

"The Evil"... Gods. Can you please read that out loud to yourself, maybe in the voice of your avatar? Might make it more apparent how ridiculous of a statement it is. People making money. How dare they!

EA ruining companies that once made good games, how dare they? Face it, RPGs have been losing ground to action games and shooters since the early 2000s. In the nineties everyone played RPGs, now its seems like only the older crowd, or the more mature, or just patient younglings can sit there and actually play an RPG that doesnt consist of shooting people every two seconds. Since when did gamers become treasurers and business counselors to these companies? It makes good business blah blah blah. Are you a gamer or do you work for the company? BP makes a lot of money, who cares if they're incompetent or cut corners? Pyramid schemes, they make lots of money, whats wrong with them? How can people defend greedy mediocrity like they weren't even gamers? Beth is the only good company left really. Yet how many did we have during the 90s? RPGs are either getting water downed into mediocrity, or just dying.

True. I think Obsidian will be the last to go, I like Obsidian.


Bioware will make it so rpgs are just games with alternate cutscenes to choose from, they are the worst of the developers for dumbing down imo. And EA making them rush, well on one hand its bad poor quality games, on the other if BW went down maybe devs would look at things differently and stop trimming games down.

The worst part is that they make the younger gamers think that games are not RPGs if they dont have a hundred pointless choices, like that makes an RPG.

Alright. Now let's take a look at the class of 1995. Let's say there are 20 kids in there. 10 of those are hip. 5 of them are grungy and gothic. 2 of them are class clowns. 3 are nerds.
Who of those bothered with installing, swapping disks, configuring memory for DOS, shuffling through the BBS for patches, and then finally getting into a game at 6pm?
Now the class of 2010. 20 kids. 10 hip. 5 goth and emo. 2 class clowns. 3 adorkable fellows.
Who of those bothers to.... flip in a disk, maybe install for three or four minutes, then play the bloody game?


Back in 1995, 20 people were enough to keep a game at state of art graphics, story-telling, and make it last thirty, fourty, sixty hours. Now in 2010, you need at least three times those to keep it at maybe 20 hours. And of course you would have to make sure this game sells to the biggest number of people possible.

:lol: I'll have to agree... although I'm a younger gamer and don't think that. Once again, I point to RPGs from Japan.

How long? That would be hard to judge, since we would have little idea what people think before the medium is popular enough that we actually HEAR what people think. I wasn't on the forum at the time, but I've heard it said more than once that Daggerfall fans were complaining about things being cut from Morrowind, so there's about ten years right there. I think part of it is an illusion of popularity; the "hardcoe" RPG, whatever you want to define that as since it's even more vague than the default version, has never been "popular". Playing videogames at all used to be considered a thing for nerdy weirdos, and I think what some people remember as a "golden age" for RPG's was during that time period. Minority tastes were catered to by a minority source. Minority tastes remained a minority, however, while the source became popular. Even if they were only being paid a slight amount of attention before, having the industry pay more and more attention to everyone else adds to the sensation of abandonment. A neglected child is probably going to be very bitter and dysfunctional. A neglected child with a sibling who gets attention lavished upon them is probably plotting to kill and eat them.

There's also the fact that this is, like everything else, about money. Companies still want those minority player's money, even if they aren't willing to shell out for an unprofitable game just for them. So now you have many games released that are "quasi-RPG's", games directed toward the majority but advertised as being rich in the more old-fashioned elements. The game gets them to buy it, then releases a sequel that doesn't bother, now that they're already customers. It further creates an effect of those game types "going away". The actual fading of these games as unprofitable is slow, but happens, and things like this make it seem like it's always the current generation that's killing them off.

As for waiting to complain, well, plenty of people are jaded by the industry, have no reason to expect something good to begin with, and see what little information they have as a bad sign. It's no less obnoxious than the at least as plentiful amounts of people declaring that Skyrim or whatever other unreleased game will be, beyond any doubt, virtually flawless and their new most favorite game.

Which ones? The most important difference is the element of choice. The typical JRPG doesn't offer much of that, which was and is one of the defining characteristics of Western RPGs.

Its the demographic, the ADD generation, what have you. That's the problem. If companies went out of their way to make good RPGs and we had a plethora of them like we did in the 90s, then Id predict more RPG gamers. The constant devolution of gaming into 'push the button, get a pellet' is the main culprit. Its like kids dont have the patience or imagination for RPGs. They can only get you to play them if they make them into action games and call them RPGs. Take a look at the Bioware forums pre and post ME2 release. It totally changed and thats just on example.

it says for mass effect, dragon age and now the elder scrolls? hasn't the elder scrolls been going the longest out of all three of those series?

Some hindsight would be wonderful. I've played games almost 25 years now, including both in the FPS and RPG genres. Worked for three developers/publishers.

1) Popular RPG games have constantly evolved. They used to be more platform-like or turn-based, but nowadays are more action based. They will evolve again.

2) FPS games used to be of the simple variety that you complain the RPG genre will turn into. In many of these games you couldn't even jump, look up, look down, just turn left, turn right, strafe, fire, change weapons, which were few (Doom with half a dozen, eventually 8+), you'd jump into the game and start firing away, with most aim being of scrolling left<->right. You don't get much more simple than that. Now, it's hard to imagine playing an FPS just with the keyboard, the standard being kb+mouse, and an army of controls. It has evolved, and also will evolve again.

What has never changed, is the notion of "dumbing down" or "streamlining" when used as a negative connotation, something that has been thrown around since god knows how long. If these genres were in such a state of dumbing down I'm sure by now they would have already reached their point of utter stupidity and simplicity yet they aren't. I'm under the impression that those who use these words have trouble understanding or coping with how the game industry changes.

The kids that do will play them. The kids that don't didn't play the likes of Ultima and D&D back then, and won't play them now. At some point in your life you have to realise that this planet is at least half-full of not that smart people. Then it might make sense. As does this whole debate about change and dumbing down stuff.

I think I mentioned that somewhere here before, but both Ma and Pa have been massive nerds since the early 70s, and this thing has been going on forever. It will never change. Ever. I think it's very likely that you'll find similar statements as posted here when you travel back in time and listen to people chatting about how horrid cinema has become since they introduced this ghastly element of voice.

I couldn't help but laugh at the part in red.

Anyway, from an earlier post, I figured you were referring to isometric computer RPGs similar to Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, and the older Fallout games. Am I correct in that assumption? I'm pretty flexible in my video game RPG tastes, so I'm happy with all different types of games considered RPGs. I've never really separated games such as Baldur's Gate and Final Fantasy into different genres and it actually surprised me a bit when I saw it the first time I came to these forums. In my first post of this thread, I already listed what games I'm excited about for the near future. If none of these upcoming games don't appeal to people who think the RPG genre is dying, then I want to know what type of RPGs they do want. Were you stating that those games are ones based on an pen-and-paper RPGs or commenting only on your standards for true RPGs. Do you have an idea of any specific examples?