Anime Criticize my CRPG Book

[Metal Hurlant]

...a printed version of the book I made a year ago and showed around.

Will you be doing printed versions? Preferably Hardcover.

 

[pakoito]

You should get Sven to do Ultima VII.

 

[felipepepe]

You should get Sven to do Ultima VII.

I've been trying that for 3 years. He said he loved the project, but is too busy.

 

[Ludo Lense]

Just a small nitpick, but the Risen summary seems a little confused. We three paragraphs dedicated to talking about the game itself, and the remainder of the page dedicated to talking about how shitty Risen 2 & 3 are. Now it's an interesting read, but as someone who's never actually played a Risen game before, it tells me next-to-nothing about the game beyond the fact that it was made by Piranha Bytes studios and it's a Gothic game in everything but name. Is the gameplay good? What about the exploration? The story? Is there anything it does better or worse than the Gothic games? Does it overall live up to its predecessor?

I mean, don't get rid of the section altogether, because it's a good look in to an example of an older studio trying and failing to adjust to a modern market while trying to placate older fans of the series, but I think it should maybe be made in to its own little mini-section. The period in which Risen was released is full of developers having to streamline or otherwise dumb down the mechanics of their games in order to compromise to the console audience, while remaining financially successful, if not necessarily endearing themselves to their original fanbase (The Witcher 2, Oblivion/Skyrim, Fallout 3, etc). Maybe it could be slightly re-done to be a retrospective on the Risen series and how Piranha Bytes tried to cater to their original audience, the console audience, then compromise to both, with less success on each successive attempt.

I am aware of this failing but basically the first version was "It is like Gothic and 2&3 are bad". Given that Gothic 1,2 and 3 appear in the book I considered it best just to go from there. I mean if you try to comprehensively extol the virtues of hack and slash games you will quickly find that you are repeating all the things that made Diablo I and II work. Hence "like Diablo plus some other stuff" or in this case "Like Gothic but with this stuff as well".

 

[pakoito]

You should get Sven to do Ultima VII.

I've been trying that for 3 years. He said he loved the project, but is too busy.

I'd suggest you offer him to synthesize the review so he only has to find a couple of chunks of 10-20 minutes where he can record his thoughts and feelings about the game in an audio recording in a phone. He can do that while in a plane, lunch break, the loo, queuing for coffee, or whatever. Then you send the final version and he vetoes.


Have you tried Rhianna Pratchett in general? She did write some RPGs before.

 

[Tigranes]

Had a 10 minute look, sorry I can't read through it all.

If you listen to nothing else in this thread, listen to MRY. The real question is what do you feel is the purpose(s) of the book. For me, one of the key contributions it could make is to help people who are interested in the idea of classic RPGs but haven't had the time/friends/experience, to actually figure out which games are worth investing time and effort into, and then trying them out. Hence, MRY post.

The other contribution is to be able to phsyically flick through and get that experience of having the games be knitted together in a chronological arc. With both those possible contributions in mind, it would also have been great if each review had a one-sentence somewhere, maybe in a box, that tells people why they should try this particular game (e.g. "possibly the most reactivity in any RPG", but it could also be like "in what other game can you talk to a dead God standing on its skeleton?"). Impossible at this stage of the project, but something to think about for particularly important games.

Big headache seems to be what layout to choose, which is partly related to that.

• Nobody's going to read 80 articles and guides in a row. How many will you have? Why are they all clumped together, instead of being interspersed with reviews with many of them at chronologically appropriate points, and then a selection of the most important and encompassing ones up front? E.g. Barnson and Abbott could go in the start, but Scorpia could come after the first cartographically challenging game. This also helps feel like you're able to read a bit more about M&M right after the M&M review.
• Ideally the splash pages and five-year overview pages will have solid colour down the right side as well as vertical lettering, so you can flip through the pages and find easy. Even better are physical tabs, but those can be hard to do.

Small stuff:

• Articles & Guides splash: "Here will be featured" is awkward, go with "Featured here are"
• Icewind Dale: first sentence, "enough for me smile" -> "enough to make me smile"; second paragraph second column p162, change "beautifully in this matter" to "...this regard"
• Last Diablo II paragraph is Google Translateish, throw it out and rewrite 100%.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

The book is already full of RPGs, those sections are to show what's going on "Meanwhile, at Le Chuck's Fortress", so I think using iconic games from the era is better:

(old version, but you get the idea)

I remember seeing that in the old version, and it felt a little strange back then.

Even though it's full of RPGs, well, it's an RPG book, and I guess splash pages of games that have nothing to do with RPGs really feels out of place, even in that context. Also, mario appears twice, and three pages have green background. In the master chief page, there's no mention of the game HALO. It also gives a vibe of "the rise of the decline", "the popamilization", "in the land of console peasantry". Which may actually be the intention, being a book made by a codexer, but you have RPGs that convey that message also...

Think about using Commander Shepard instead of Altair, for example... Vivec instead of Master Chief... Alis Landale instead of old Mario... and so on. There's no phantasy star in your book... so it's an Rpg, console and fits the "meanwhile".

Honestly, these picture have no place in this book. Might as well put console pictures, company logos, game developers of that era...

 

[Grauken]

The very first page of the book should contain a warning, something like

Yes, games had manuals for a reason in those days. Read the damn fucking manual!!!

this solves almost 90% of things mentioned by MRY and some of the others, and if people are too lazy to read the manuals, then they shouldn't play those games in the first place

 

[MRY]

The very first page of the book should contain a warning, something like

Yes, games had manuals for a reason in those days. Read the damn fucking manual!!!

this solves almost 90% of things mentioned by MRY and some of the others, and if people are too lazy to read the manuals, then they shouldn't play those games in the first place

I will answer this temperately.

(1) You may be right, as it has been a long time since I played the games I discussed, but I would be extraordinarily surprised to find the stuff I mentioned in the manuals.

For example, I am right now reading through the Pool of Radiance manual. The first things it tells you about character creation are (a) false or at least contrary to all the FAQs I checked (that you want a balanced party of different races) and (b) irrelevant (that dwarfs are a "cunning race of sturdy workers and craftsman"). It then gives you information that means nothing outside without context (the level cap for dwarf fighters). Soon thereafter the game gives you materially false information ("The character's on-screen list of items only includes important items"). It does not give any indication about whether cheating with rerolling/modify is expected or not (the most extensive FAQ suggests it is). The manual doesn't give any illumination as to whether the passage of time matters (i.e., whether rest spawning is permitted, required, etc.), or what the appropriate response is for losing a follower. It does mention that you shouldn't bother looting enemies.

The best I can say for the manual is that in a discursive way it shares most of the game commands with the player, without giving any meaningful sense of which commands are really important and which aren't. It is the perfect manual to lose and confuse the player. Especially because the Gold Box games actually have really good interfaces for the time -- they were easy for me to figure out how to play in the sense of "what buttons do I press" even as a young child. Basically the manual spends a lot of time sharing obvious and non-helpful info, and very little time sharing helpful info.

The Ultima VII manual is awesome if you hate learning how to play a game but are really into in-character writing like "If thou wouldst permit me, I would very much wish appreciate sharing these rewards with you." I didn't see any discussion of how to manage your inventory either in-character or in the out-of-character reference guide.

[EDIT: Incidentally, my list of "how to get into Ultima" topics would absolutely include, "The fake Olde Englishe and weird Renaissance Faire obsession is absolutely mortifying, and the writing in these games is basically terrible, but there are some interesting things going on with the lore."]

(2) You might be surprised to hear this, but the best way to encourage developers to return to old school game design isn't to make it as hard as possible for new players to discover what's great about old games. Even if the thought of new players never enjoying those games delights you in a Hogarthian Industry and Idleness sense (i.e., that because they are too lazy, they don't deserve the rewards of virtue), for your own selfish sake you should want them to learn to play old games.

 

[Grauken]

Part of playing a game is discovering how its internals work, but as has been repeated, the GUIs of older games are often inscrutable, which means manuals actually did help you a lot to get started

 

[MRY]

"90% of what you're asking for is in the manual and if you won't read it, you shouldn't play the game."
"Not understanding what you're asking about is part of playing a game."
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Snorkack]

Of all the things to happen, the codex making a case for adding quest compasses was what I expected the least.

 

[Grauken]

Okay, got me there

Lets say it like that. Reading the manual is enough to get started on any old game and the rest is something you can easily find out while playing. It's not like any of us in these days were smarter than kids today and we still managed and finished these games

 

[felipepepe]

We were had a different mentality back then, and probably had some genre meta knowledge from other, easier RPGs. That's something you can't underestimate.

Like, a friend of mine was playing Day of the Tentacle the other day... It's an amazing adventure games, but it's almost impenetrable if you didn't grow up playing dozen of adventure games and know their internal logic of picking up everything and trying crazy stuff.

 

[Prime Junta]

I read almost all of it (and will read the rest). It's very good overall; lots of games there that were completely unknown to me. It does need a round or two of proofreading as there are more typos and such than you normally see in published work, but other than that little niggle I honestly can't think of anything.

An epub/mobi version would be nice though, I like to read stuff on my Kobo.

 

[Captain Rufus]

A few more questions :

- More understandable, but still, why didn't you include mentions of M&M3, whitch did everything (arguabily, in an uniformly worse way) World of Xeen did but a few years before? And why VII over VI, whitch had among the most daunting dungeons among any games I ever played.

I sent him in my MnM3 review like a yearish ago but Felipepe wants reviews by folks who completed the game. And while I own the most valuable version to my knowledge (English language Turbografx CD), I didn't find the game fun enough to complete even in its slightly better(ish) interfaced form.
I'd be happy to either give up my slot to someone who completed it, or maybe even collaborate with someone who has finished it. (The only MnMs I finished was Heroes 2 on the GBColor, and X in spite of it having UPlay protection in it. )

 

[Captain Rufus]

Points about old games and interfaces and the like is also so damned TRUE. Many classics I find borderline unplayable now because we have mostly good interfaces these days and nobody is even expected to open a manual. Plus simple quality of life things that either the old devs didn't think of or just couldn't fit in games that ran on an Apple II or C64 even if they wanted to implement them.

http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2016/07/retrocomputing-why-bother-shadowcaster.html Hell, I eventually came upon a relatively easy to implement option thanks to our modern multibutton mice and USB devices. Which at least HELPS make non WASD First Person games much more playable. You can kinda do the same with some old computer action games that still demanded keyboard inputs. (Atari 800, C64, Amiga, and ST folks KNOW THIS PAIN.) Emulation and a keymapper just puts us in business.

I've been joking for years that the reason most of these older games had such shit interfaces was either because they were computer literate nerdshoes types who just didn't REALIZE how stupid their interface was to normal people or it was done as a form of pre emptive copy protection. (And as mentioned the third reason could be machine limitations not just media space and machine horsepower, but the controllers we had to use with them.)

Not every old game gets fan mods. Ultimas are an extreme outlier especially for Computer Games of the pre mid 90s days. In a lot of cases emulation and some modern programs turn games most of us wouldn't enjoy unless we never left the age of the game (if we weren't annoyed by the issues THEN. Yes we were.) into ones that can sometimes be BETTER than modern ones outside of graphics. (This is also a reason to laugh at the console only gamers. They get to pay more just to play their games "properly" and in many cases go through MORE HOOPS than us Computer folks do for an inferior experience because they need upscalers or CRTs or SCART/RGB cables or or or. I've never cared about authenticity. I just want MORE FUN GAMES.)

 

[Grauken]

I remember the time well when dev's loved to use nothing else but intuitive buttons with logos

turns out a lot of those were not really intuitive

 

[Unkillable Cat]

You should get Sven to do Ultima VII.

I've been trying that for 3 years. He said he loved the project, but is too busy.

Try asking Joseph Morris, a.k.a. Doug the Eagle?

 

[Prime Junta]

I think the "what you need to know to play this" idea is a really good one. However IMO it would work better as an online resource, perhaps a wiki. It could be associated with and mentioned in the book.

(Full disclosure -- I recently gave a shot at play the Gold Box Dark Sun games -- I love the setting -- and wasn't able to get over the hump of initial WTF. I haven't given up though, I will get back to them at another occasion.)

 

[Grauken]

there were Gold Box Dark Sun games?

 

[Captain Rufus]

there were Gold Box Dark Sun games?

I think he means the two Dark Sun SSI games. Which weren't Gold Box but their own new engine. (One with good spritework and the other some low res rendered like stuff that didn't look good AT ALL.)

 

[Prime Junta]

^
Yep, those. I stand corrected, they don't use the Gold Box engine.

 

[Sratopotator]

I get what you're saying, but no, I always planned this as something to push readers into playing the games.

Roughly speaking, I think this book will have three main kind of readers:

- Veterans looking for hidden gems & some nostalgia;
- Modern gamers curious about the history of the genre;
- Modern gamers curious about the post-2000 games;

Or, in other words:

Players who know 80's RPGs (Ultima, Dungeon Master, Wizardry),
those who know 90's RPGs (Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Daggerfall),
and those only into post-2000 RPGs (Oblivion, Dragon Age, Kotor).

There might also be a grade of post-2010 only people, but that's scary and makes me feel old. This is based on the emails & comments I get, but also on the reactions to a printed version of the book I made a year ago and showed around.

The way I see it, the job of the book is to offer them hidden gems and useful tip to the "Tier" they are in, and try to persuade them to try something from the lower tiers. There will be those who'll just play whatever they think looks fun, but if someone wants guidance from the book, I think ratings are the worst possible way of providing that.

Not only it's hard to say "is XCOM harder than Darklands?", but it varies greatly from person to person. I know AD&D, so creating a character in the Gold Box series or KotC for the first time was way more natural to me than in Wizardry 8 or PoE, for example. Lands of Lore doesn't have the character creation of Legend of Grimrock, but it's A LOT harder... is that more or less accessible? Does difficulty frustrates people more than having to read a manual to create a decent character? I don't know.

Not to mention some very accessible games, like Rings of Zilfin, Hillsfar or Zeliard, are obscure titles that are really just curiosities.

Most importantly, I think it's all about the mindset - and that's what I think we should really focus on. Even going in to play something like Tyranny, you cannot just "boot and play" - you have to get into it, read the dumb rules, care about the dull lore, think abut your pointless decisions, etc...

This is where I agree with MRY on a kind of guide, but I think it should be a "FAQ & mindset guide", that opens the book before the reviews. General stuff like "Do I NEED to draw my maps by hand?", "Should I save-scum / save-state?", "Are the manuals really mandatory?" etc...

Like, "Should I keep re-rolling my stats?" "In most games that would be power-gaming, but the Wizardry series requires you to do so if you wish to get certain classes..."

I think something like that, coupled with tips "SAVE OFTEN AND TAKE NOTES" and an entry guide with key games that are still very accessible to play would work well. Better than ratings.

Thanks for replying.
You seem a bit hang up on the ratings/meter thing, and you're kind of ignoring the rest of my post (again).
MRY seems to get the direction i'm talking about, that would certainly help with making the games seem more alive and playable.
agris suggestion of making some of that info into insert panels would be great.
I still don't know, why you're ignoring the idea of editorial commentary/editorial picks (for instance - for entry level cRPGs), or some kind of summaries (that could work a little bit like the thing MRY suggested).

 

[Grauken]