Games "must be like Hollywood" is the worst decline in gaming

[luj1]

I literally cannot enjoy modern (post-modern) CRPGs anymore

If I wanna watch a fucking movie, I'll go to the cinema. If I wanna read a book, I'll read a book. If I want GAMEPLAY I'll play a GAME.

When I play old school games like Wizardry or Dark Sun, I really feel great

No one is holding your hand. No voice acting. No cutscenes. Just this abstracted gameplay which invokes this dreamlike feeling. Games nowadays are oversimulated.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

 

[luj1]

It wasn't and that has nothing to do with this.

The mistake was cinematic dialogue that started with KotOR and Bloodlines (at the end of the Renaissance era)

 

[luj1]

Of course shit eaters like Lord_Potato will love it

 

[JarlFrank]

I honestly, genuinely prefer Morrowind's text box dialog over other 3D RPGs' fully voice acted line-by-line presentation of dialog.

 

[Butter]

This is a pretty non-controversial stance. Where's rusty when you need an aggressive contrarian to defend cinematic garbage?

 

[Lemming42]

There's a place for both. If the dialogue and voice acting are good then it's always a pleasure to sit through. The only game I can immediately think of that inspires this feeling is Anvil of Dawn, though:



I think voice acting has one other benefit which is that, due to the cost of hiring actors, it puts word limits on writing. Whatever you think of the content, BG3's conversations tend to be fairly concise and to-the-point while still having lots of character, which is better than Owlcat or Obsidian's endless reams of shitty boring text.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Of course shit eaters like Lord_Potato will love it

Of course dumb fucks like you would like games to stop developing at a level of gold box series, with no further advances. Fortunately most of us are not as retarded.

 

[luj1]

I honestly, genuinely prefer Morrowind's text box dialog over other 3D RPGs' fully voice acted line-by-line presentation of dialog.

Of course. Morrowind style of dialogue isn't bad at all

 

[luj1]

This is a pretty non-controversial stance.

You are correct, I made a poll some time ago here

The results were 80% against cinematic dialogue and 20% in favor

 

[luj1]

There's a place for both. If the dialogue and voice acting are good then it's always a pleasure to sit through.

The only good voice acting is when it's sparsely used

For example in NwN only important characters are voiced and only the important lines.

Plot characters also had short personalised musical loops when you talk to them. No one did this since IIRC.



So yeah, there IS a place for VO/VA, but only if you subscribe to "less is more"

 

[luj1]

Of course dumb fucks like you would like games to stop developing at a level of gold box series

Yes

Fortunately most of us are not as retarded.

You were retarded enough to take the vaxx though. And your forehead is like a billboard for every dumb political stance flaunted on TV in recent years

 

[JarlFrank]

Of course shit eaters like Lord_Potato will love it

Of course dumb fucks like you would like games to stop developing at a level of gold box series, with no further advances. Fortunately most of us are not as retarded.

Games pretending to be movies isn't a good direction of development though.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Dumb take. Some of the greatest RPGs ever were fully voiced with great production values (for the time anyway): Gothic, Gothic 2, Risen, Fallout: New Vegas, Witcher 1 and 2, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Breath of the Wild, ELEX, Deus Ex, etc.

Games shouldn't be like movies in terms of player agency, but there is no inherent harm in having them look like movies, it's just a question of can you make your game with movie-like production values but with actual gameplay and player agency? If yes, then by all means, do it, if not (e.g. if you don't have enough resources), then stick to games with less production values.

The only actual problem is when a studio like Rockstar decides to make movie-like games, like RDR2, where there is no player agency, and you have to do exactly as they tell you. Then it becomes an issue, but that's not tied to production values.

People complain about high costs of movie-like games having negative impacts on the industry, but that partly due to bad decisions by the development companies. If you can't afford to do it, then don't. You can always make a low budget, low production value game like Battle Brothers or Hotline Miami, but it's not an either or thing. Those games can co-exist with Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Games pretending to be movies isn't a good direction of development though.

Games pretending it's still 1988 isn't good direction either.

I mean it's okay for indie productions like Space Wreck and somewhat endearing even. However there it was a stylistic choice. If whole genre followed suit, it woule be arrested development.

 

[gabel]

I literally cannot enjoy modern (post-modern) CRPGs anymore

If I wanna watch a fucking movie, I'll go to the cinema. If I wanna read a book, I'll read a book. If I want GAMEPLAY I'll play a GAME.

This has been a problem for a long time—decades!
It's getting worse and reaching its ending point though: no gameplay left whatsoever.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

The mistake was cinematic dialogue that started with KotOR and Bloodlines (at the end of the Renaissance era)

Stonekeep and some other CD-decline era games did that way before KotOR.

 

[Lord_Potato]

The mistake was cinematic dialogue that started with KotOR and Bloodlines (at the end of the Renaissance era)

Stonekeep and some other CD-decline era games did that way before KotOR.

Fallout also did that with the talking heads and full voice acting for major characters. And it was a major improvement over the usual static screen with text that most characters got during dialogue. This decision added a ton of soul to the likes of Master.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

There are many examples that benefit from voice over, and I'd like to add Drakensang: The River of Time, which compares favorably to its silent predecessor Drakensang. The German version of Spellforce 3 also has great voice acting. It only becomes a problem if its combined with shitty dialogues and horrible writing.

 

[Infinitron]

This thread seems familiar: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...n-vo-cutscenes-have-weakened-gameplay.148720/

But really, people have been talking about this phenomenon for decades.

In luj1's case, I have the impression that he gets annoyed by the faux-Hollywood style of game trailers regardless of how cinematic the games themselves are.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Fallout also did that with the talking heads and full voice acting for major characters. And it was a major improvement over the usual static screen with text that most characters got during dialogue. This decision added a ton of soul to the likes of Master.

But the thing is that partial VA isn't only thing that Fallout was doing.

Fallout experimented with mechanics which were considered "old school" during that time. Some of those, like parser, didn't lead anywhere.
Fixed isometric camera, for example, instead of 1st person view or 3d camera from varying angles like Return to Krondor had.
Besides full character creation was a somewhat rarity during those days.

Meeting with Master might've been good, but it wasn't buried under stream of tech gimmick or cinematic shit.

 

[Spukrian]

No one is holding your hand. No voice acting. No cutscenes. Just this abstracted gameplay which invokes this dreamlike feeling. Games nowadays are oversimulated.

I get you, but calling modern games "oversimulated" when they're the exact opposite of that is wrong.

 

[NecroLord]

I think a balance can be struck between voice acting and text based dialogue in RPGs.
Case in point: Fallout 1 and 2.
Fallout had Clancy Brown, Keith David, David Warner, etc.
But the game was NOT about them. They were not the centerpieces, they were not fully motioned and had their likeness put into the characters they were playing.
Same with VTMB. Sure, it has a lot of dialogue, but the voice actors are just awesome and doing their greatest. Hell, even Mitsoda is pretty good.

 

[octavius]

The mistake was cinematic dialogue that started with KotOR and Bloodlines (at the end of the Renaissance era)

Stonekeep and some other CD-decline era games did that way before KotOR.

Yeah, Stonekeep is a game I remember was a huge step in the wrong direction at a time of general incline.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Oh, another one of those 'games shan't be movies' threads....