An assessment of Oblivion after having first played Skyrim, then Morrowind

[SomeDudeandHisHamster]

Cael

in liue of wall-texting I'll postulate the following:

- In (the context of) video games, specifically RPGs and more specifically RPGs of Western lineage: one of the oldest and most simple arguments that can be made as to why you are in actuality not playing the role of a DOOM MARINE is that the DOOM MARINE, or rather the game within which he exists is not designed with the purpose of presenting the player with multiple layers of abstracted classification and mechanically driven extrapolation in the form of deliberately discreet levels of the game's conflict resolution systems.

- In Doom there is nothing that allows the player to express a tangible change in how the DOOM MARINE interacts with the game many different elements or in how the game reacts to the DOOM MARINE; there are power-ups but they they exist--

you know what, I don't have the will-power to argue this. Up above in some earlier post someone (forgot who) talked about how an attribute system should allow character conceptualization with the lowest example being the STRENGTH or equivalent attribute changing how that character functions inside the game world: how much he can carry, whether he can bash thru obstacles, etc. It is one of the oldest and simplest examples of what I was talking about in my 1st bullet point, and it's something non-RPGs do not feature (or, being generous here, do not feature in a meaningful way).

EDIT: actually that example there about STR attrib. was from Pillars ii's backer beta release thread, lol. Why? Because apparently PoE II's has been super-dumbed-down and attributes are a bigger clusterfuck than in PoE 1 and all talents removed, etc, etc, huge fuckup all around, end result is modders wil fix it .

EDIT: obviously an RPG doesn't have to hew to such things, such as having to obligatorily feature some sort of STR-equivalency in its attributes system or whatever-the-fuck in order to allow role-playing. That example is useful because it handily demonstrates what an RPG can do and what non-RPGs do not do (because they're not RPGs, they're other types of games with different designs).

"role" in an RPG is something that's atavistically tied to what an RPG is, in my opinion...

Many classic RPG do not much more than the Doom marine in terms of interactivity. How much does the main character interact with elements within the game and how the game interacts with him in, say, Ultima 4? How about the early titles of Final Fantasy? Then there is the Gold Box games.

All of these are basically a group of people wandering through the game gaining power-ups/levels, better armour and weapons, solving puzzles, but interaction with the environment and game? Minimal.

Yet they are still considered RPGs because they have stats and a story. It seems like RPGs have no actual definition other than having stats or being story based, even the RPG devs of old had very different definitions of an RPG.

 

[Ventidius]

Seriously speaking though simply typing "any game where... role... character... RPG" once again is something that includes basically every single non-rpg game that most codexers would agree, that while featuring some aspects of the RPG template, (like, say, GTA 3/4/5 whatever the one where u have attributes and shit) are most definitely not RPGs.

And they would be right, if you really drill down to it :D

Roleplay. You play a role. That role can be a sequioa cactus in a desert scenario. So, TECHNICALLY, playing Mario Bros is roleplay. So, Mario or Luigi?

That's an excessively literalist way of defining a genre. It's kind of like saying that a shooter is a game where you shoot guns, hence Jagged Alliance 2 is a shooter; or worse, a fighting game is a game which involves fighting, which would make almost every game ever made into a fighting game. A genre's nature is more than those features that can be captured by its name or labeling, it also involves the actual historical conventions that shaped it, and even considered as a coherent archetype in the abstract, it usually involves a more complex web of elements than the simple actions that the labels often denote.

Also, I can't believe you guys just pushed the reset button on the "What is an RPG?" conversation. Did you even read what has been discussed in the last few pages? A lot of these things have already been addressed.

 

[aweigh]

Ventidius

and not just in this thread... what Cael is talking about was discussed, settled and buried 6 feet under and then labeled "THIS SHIT IS NO LONGER RELEVANT AS IT IS COMPLETELY SOLVED!!!1 /keke".

I don't mean that in a mean way, it's just surprising someone hasn't yet had the ole "I PLAY DA ROLE OF MASTER CHEEF!" furiously beaten out of his head with silver-plated knuckles called LOVE & HATE.

The current "metagame" strats for the "WHAT IZ RPGSS???" discussion in the Codex revolves around obviating the legacy of adventure games and their contributions to the RPG genre, with a smaller faction crying "BUT STORIES MUST THUSLY BRANCH, LIKE A Uh TREE!!", and yet another even smaller faction (usually termed combat-fags) not really that involved in any of this shit but sometimes popping in to drop some truth-bombs concerning actual game play and how a video game, i.e. an RPG, rarely benefits from attempting to ape "literature".

There are more mini-factions of course, but the "I PLAY MARIO HE IS MY AVATAR IN MY RPG" line of Inquisition is apparently alive and well! It is a marvelously concise little packet of unbridled deflective rhetoric bathed in the blood of baby Straw-Men and almost as good as the "BUT, ALLLL LIVES MATTER!!!!" rebuttal.

 

[Ventidius]

aweigh

Oh, I have lurked this site long enough to have my Codex lore respectably leveled up, I think, and am aware of the outline of the dialectical process you described. Basically, the Codex was founded by Black Isle fans who were all about story, quest design, dialogues, branching, reactivity, world-building, etc. The Codex was a bit of a "storyfag" echo chamber back then. Indeed I came across the site a few times back in the old days, but it didn't really compel me due to the excessively story-focused tone of the discussion. Then the mondblutians (who are essentially powergamers) came around and BTFO'd the storyfags. The latter are still around and are still very vocal, but the former effectively paved the way for an RPG discussion that was more open and included more diverse perspectives. I would say right now the Codex is roughly analogous to the old days of the pnp community, in that it has powergamers, roleplayers, tacticians, and casuals(the classic division of RPG fandom), all in good measure. That's how it seems to me anyway.

 

[aweigh]

I attribute this, for good or ill, to the MASSIVE INFLUX of new posters + Bethesda forum "refugees" after the "Oblivion War" we had with their forums/Summer.

Afterwards the Great Codex Rebellion and the ensuing change in management most definitely did its part in drawing in even more new posters.

Pre-Oblivion is unbelievably different to post-Oblivion, in every possible sense. Still it was for the better, I think Codex would prolly be dead if it hadn't grown.

 

[Iznaliu]

almost as good as the "BUT, ALLLL LIVES MATTER!!!!" rebuttal.

Well, some people on the Codex would actually use that exact rebuttal.

 

[Cael]

That's an excessively literalist way of defining a genre. It's kind of like saying that a shooter is a game where you shoot guns, hence Jagged Alliance 2 is a shooter; or worse, a fighting game is a game which involves fighting, which would make almost every game ever made into a fighting game. A genre's nature is more than those features that can be captured by its name or labeling, it also involves the actual historical conventions that shaped it, and even considered as a coherent archetype in the abstract, it usually involves a more complex web of elements than the simple actions that the labels often denote.

Also, I can't believe you guys just pushed the reset button on the "What is an RPG?" conversation. Did you even read what has been discussed in the last few pages? A lot of these things have already been addressed.

I hope you realise the cheesy grins in my post indicate that I was being a bit hyperbolic and more than a bit cheeky there, mate.

 

[Ventidius]

That's an excessively literalist way of defining a genre. It's kind of like saying that a shooter is a game where you shoot guns, hence Jagged Alliance 2 is a shooter; or worse, a fighting game is a game which involves fighting, which would make almost every game ever made into a fighting game. A genre's nature is more than those features that can be captured by its name or labeling, it also involves the actual historical conventions that shaped it, and even considered as a coherent archetype in the abstract, it usually involves a more complex web of elements than the simple actions that the labels often denote.

Also, I can't believe you guys just pushed the reset button on the "What is an RPG?" conversation. Did you even read what has been discussed in the last few pages? A lot of these things have already been addressed.

I hope you realise the cheesy grins in my post indicate that I was being a bit hyperbolic and more than a bit cheeky there, mate.

Ah, I see. A case of sarcasm on the internet and all that. I guess it just wouldn't surprise me to see that argument at all considering I have seen a few fellows going around saying an RPG is simply a game where you play a role.

 

[Cael]

Ah, I see. A case of sarcasm on the internet and all that. I guess it just wouldn't surprise me to see that argument at all considering I have seen a few fellows going around saying an RPG is simply a game where you play a role.

Yeah, sorry about that. I wasn't aware of the history and was feeling a bit trollish when I posted that.