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Incline RPG Codex's Top 50 cRPGs - Results and Reviews

Lhynn

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I would also argue against the idea that Diablo 2 (and other click-click-loot games) are on the same RPG level as Witcher 2 and other games mentioned. Witcher 2 has a hell of a lot of narrative choice and some rather interesting quests, Diablo 2 has neither. And while Alpha Brotocol is an action hybrid stats matter a LOT in how competent you are with your class and equipment. The main focus of Diablo 2 is grinding for loot, and you might notice not a lot of the top 50 games in the voting focused on loot exclusively.
Some say the narrative in diablo 2 was really strong, even if barebones, i didnt find it very apealing tho. Diablo 1 i feel is was and still is a great game, and should be played more.
 

MicoSelva

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I would also argue against the idea that Diablo 2 (and other click-click-loot games) are on the same RPG level as Witcher 2 and other games mentioned. Witcher 2 has a hell of a lot of narrative choice and some rather interesting quests, Diablo 2 has neither. And while Alpha Brotocol is an action hybrid stats matter a LOT in how competent you are with your class and equipment. The main focus of Diablo 2 is grinding for loot, and you might notice not a lot of the top 50 games in the voting focused on loot exclusively.
Some say the narrative in diablo 2 was really strong, even if barebones, i didnt find it very apealing tho. Diablo 1 i feel is was and still is a great game, and should be played more.
Take heed and bear witness to the truths that lie herein.
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

Guest
Morrowind wasn't awful. It at least had some amount of thought put into it and the art and world design were fairly unique. But for a game that was supposed to feel handcrafted, the dialog and world felt more devoid of life and reality than Daggerfall's procedurally generated world years before.

Gothic 2: NotR is far superior.
Most of the list below it was superior.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
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I think Morrowind is awful. Art and world design were better in Gothic 1/2.

Warband is rated criminally low.
 

Lemming42

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Morrowind wasn't awful. It at least had some amount of thought put into it and the art and world design were fairly unique. But for a game that was supposed to feel handcrafted, the dialog and world felt more devoid of life and reality than Daggerfall's procedurally generated world years before.

Morrowind's dialogue sucks, but it's virtually impossible for a game to have worse dialogue than Daggerfall.
"AHOY MATE COULD YOU GIVE ME THE LOWDOWN ON WORK?"
"THERE'S NO NEED TO TALK DOWN TO ME LIKE THAT BUT I THINK (NPC who isn't even in the game) HAS WORK, YOU CAN FIND HIM AT (some tavern somewhere on the other side of the country where you'll find nothing)"

I think Morrowind is awful. Art and world design were better in Gothic 1/2.

Vvardenfell is really amazingly detailed. It's pretty much the whole draw of the game, other than metagaming and breaking the ridiculously fragile RPG mechanics.

If you think the setting sucks then whatever, but the amount of effort they put into creating the world, right down to details that only autistic kids playing the game for the 200th time would notice, is undeniable.
 

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Morrowind and Daggerfall don't have actual dialogue, they have abstracted dialogue meant to convey information rather than play out a scene like a fucking theater piece. Daggerfall's is stylized but still abstract. Actually all of Bethesda's RPGs have abstracted dialogue, though it's been shifting from that to the shitty fallout/IE style dialogue everyone else uses since Oblivion.
 

felipepepe

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I prefer Morrowind's dialog to Mass Effect.

- I love cocks.
- I hate cocks.

- Tell me about cocks.
- I must go.

MASTERS OF WRITING! At least Daggerfall dialog is generated, here something that considers itself human actually wrote those.
 

Lemming42

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Daggerfall's is stylized but still abstract.

It's more the fact that the options for what tone you want to take with people never make any sense and nobody reacts as they're supposed to, along with people frequently directing you to places that don't exist, giving you directions to shops in another country when you ask for the nearest one and sometimes just descending into total madness by splicing 3 unrelated sentences together at once.

Morrowind's dialogue is ok but the answers you get to a lot of topics are usually unnecessarily wordy, and there's basically no reason to talk to more than one person in each town because everyone says the exact same thing. It would have been better if they'd made people give different premade info dumps based on their race and class or whatever and done a better job of determining which NPCs can answer which topics.
 
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Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
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Vvardenfell is really amazingly detailed. It's pretty much the whole draw of the game, other than metagaming and breaking the ridiculously fragile RPG mechanics.

If you think the setting sucks then whatever, but the amount of effort they put into creating the world, right down to details that only autistic kids playing the game for the 200th time would notice, is undeniable.

I'm sorry, but how is Morrowind's world amazingly detailed? I don't see amazing detail anywhere, on any level. It's a large world, filled with nothing much. I'm being serious when I ask this: tell me more.
 

Broseph

Dangerous JB
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Vvardenfell is really amazingly detailed. It's pretty much the whole draw of the game, other than metagaming and breaking the ridiculously fragile RPG mechanics.

If you think the setting sucks then whatever, but the amount of effort they put into creating the world, right down to details that only autistic kids playing the game for the 200th time would notice, is undeniable.

I'm sorry, but how is Morrowind's world amazingly detailed? I don't see amazing detail anywhere, on any level. It's a large world, filled with nothing much. I'm being serious when I ask this: tell me more.
:hmmm:
 
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Very out of the way places that you can deduce the location after reading clues about it somewhere else, clothing of random NPCs showing not only social status but also their (sometimes secret) profession and political affiliation, regions and its inhabitants displaying different cultures (you can tell a town's allegiance the instant you set foot in it, just by looking at the buildings), lotsa stuff hidden in nooks and crannies to reward exploration (I never found that nice sword in Balmora despite walking past that building tons of times, and even entering it sometimes), etc, etc. A more...enthusiastic fan like DraQ could tell you more. If you played it and saw "nothing much", then you are in the right place because you have some very unrealistic standards

Morrowind's dialogue is ok but the answers you get to a lot of topics are usually unnecessarily wordy

The first time you talk to a Savant NPC...whew, finally done with all those topics, time to...holy shit it's 5 in the morning? :negative:
 

Lemming42

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I'm sorry, but how is Morrowind's world amazingly detailed? I don't see amazing detail anywhere, on any level. It's a large world, filled with nothing much. I'm being serious when I ask this: tell me more.

Took a while to find it, but I finally found a post I remembered from ages ago.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...do-people-like-morrowind-so-much.76548/page-7

Scroll down to DraQ's post, the one with the picture of the Dunmer in the robes.

The game is filled with that kind of thing, and if you invest the time to learn about the world, listen to what everyone says, read all the books you find and try and piece things together the game rewards you.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
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Feb 13, 2013
Messages
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Very out of the way places that you can deduce the location after reading clues about it somewhere else, clothing of random NPCs showing not only social status but also their (sometimes secret) profession and political affiliation, regions and its inhabitants displaying different cultures (you can tell a town's allegiance the instant you set foot in it, just by looking at the buildings), lotsa stuff hidden in nooks and crannies to reward exploration (I never found that nice sword in Balmora despite walking past that building tons of times, and even entering it sometimes), etc, etc. A more...enthusiastic fan like DraQ could tell you more. If you played it and saw "nothing much", then you are in the right place because you have some very unrealistic standards

Gothic 2 has most of that, one difference being there's less factions and cultures, but they're better fleshed out. Much of the "detail" in Morrowind is mere window-dressing, when you peek behind it there's not much to see. Fallout 1/2, PS:T and Arcanum are examples of RPGs with detailed worlds, but I think calling even them "amazingly detailed" is a bit much. Morrowind is the best TES, though.
 
Unwanted

CyberP

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Morrowind certainly isn't awful, just highly flawed. It showed promise. If Bethesda expanded upon it's design in the right direction the results could have been glorious, but they took the easy way out like everyone else because money.

Doesn't help that those that didn't sell out went bankrupt or were eaten alive (Looking Glass, SirTech, and so many others).

Enter popamole. PC-onkly RPG nerds were not a viable enough market to make highly complex games for. Instead of just making excellent ports to consoles (See Morrowind, Arx Fatalis and others) everyone jumped in head-first and went full popamole, easy money.
 
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your brain is highly flawed

Took a while to find it, but I finally found a post I remembered from ages ago.

Yeah, I was trying to recreate that post from memory. :)

Fallout 1/2, PS:T and Arcanum are examples of RPGs with detailed worlds, but I think calling even them "amazingly detailed" is a bit much.

:whatho:

it's a bit hard for me to think of more detailed worlds and I've played 90% of everything out there
 
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a cut of domestic sheep prime

Guest
Morrowind's dialogue sucks, but it's virtually impossible for a game to have worse dialogue than Daggerfall.
And yet Morrowind manages it. In Daggerfall you subconsciously give a bit of grace because you know it's all procedurally generated BS. In Morrowind, it's all handwritten, but wikilog and the bland "dialog options" are few and far between. Anyway, Daggerfall is one of those "whole is better than the sum of its parts" games. Take any feature of Daggerfall on its own and it's likely to be bad. All together it was pretty awesome though. Morrowind can be like that too at times. Mostly it sucks though. "Detailed" crap is still crap.
 
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Doctor Sbaitso

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I prefer Morrowind's dialog to Mass Effect.

- I love cocks.
- I hate cocks.

- Tell me about cocks.
- I must go.

MASTERS OF WRITING! At least Daggerfall dialog is generated, here something that considers itself human actually wrote those.

Comments about writing quality aside for both games, dialogue in Morrowind was joyless and tedious as hell for me 95% of the time. It is all bout finding the one option buried under the list of mundane dialogue choices that 300 NPCs share. I resorted to rapid spam-clicking of every choice until I saw a journal update. Then I would go see what the journal says.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Look, you're going to get highly flawed games in a top 10 CRPG list anywhere, because ten CRPGs that are great without being highly flawed haven't been created yet
 

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