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Is post-apocalyptic setting old&busted?
- Thread starter shihonage
- Start date
Excidium
P. banal
To answer the thread: No. Not to me anyway. PA done right doesn't get old.
Fuck movies where the dog diesThe Vincent Price movie based on the book is pretty good too.The real I Am Legend is a book about vampires.
Good book, good film, but I think the Will Smith version is underrated. Sure the ending is total crap, but the first 3/4 of that film is pretty damn good.
What about the alternative ending?The Vincent Price movie based on the book is pretty good too.The real I Am Legend is a book about vampires.
Good book, good film, but I think the Will Smith version is underrated. Sure the ending is total crap, but the first 3/4 of that film is pretty damn good.
Indeed. However, that's not what the book is about. Its purpose is to drive home a certain viewpoint of humanity, especially in a post-civilized society (which is what I take issue with). Little, if any, of the overarching theme has got to do with children. Children were just a convenient vehicle for a variety of reasons.
Tell me, how does it happen there is no post-apocalipstick set after the humanity actually fucking runs out of fuel and ammo and has to revert to actual iron age, without heavily customized M-16s and sports cars?
Because it's entirely about "gee, let's take today sans law enforcement and fashion sense" power fantasy.
Pfft, I'd take elves and wizards over this crap any day.
Because it's entirely about "gee, let's take today sans law enforcement and fashion sense" power fantasy.
Pfft, I'd take elves and wizards over this crap any day.
Excidium
P. banal
Because all CRPG devs can do is copy what has already been done
Awor Szurkrarz
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2009
- Messages
- 21,899
But it was done in the Canticle for Leibowitz.
Excidium
P. banal
But it needs have been done as a CRPG. Preferably one with a sizeable following you can capitalize on.
Clockwork Knight
Arcane
Because that would be like playing your average fantasy RPG except without the dragons and magic.
Good thing you came, stranger. We need help with Marley's gang, they are gonna burn down the village if we don't give them all our coin. Here, take this iron sword and leather helmet. If you need more armor talk to Lester, the blacksmith.
Awor Szurkrarz
Arcane
- Joined
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- Messages
- 21,899
Well, you could add a copious amount of rape :D .
And this isn't flashy enough, when there are no exploshuns of fuel cisterns or races on spiked bikes with mounted machineguns, yeah?
...and then purveyors of customized sports cars and BDSM outfits pretend their taste is somehow more refined than ye olde Tolkien fantasy. Riiiight.
MoLAoS
Guest
SM Stirling! Both Dies the Fire and Island in the Sea of Time explore a sort of post apocalypse like event, one involves the loss of technology due to certain principles of thermdynamics failing and the other involves throwing a small island back into days of Babylon.
Pesharwar Lancers is also technically post-apoc but its around the time of the British Raj and its more of an exodus from Europe to India.
Baron
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2010
- Messages
- 2,887
Despite the resurgence in Post Apoc popularity it will always remain a quality setting because it has that additional hardship to the player, Man against the elements. Generic fantasy settings are shit because every inhabitant lives in a picturesque woodland wonderland, and if wasn't for the randomly spawning orcs stealing the farmers' pumpkins then the PC would have nothing to do but hit on NPC women.* The game world lacks a persistant state of fear (although the argument could certainly be made that this heightens the suspense of the game world's dungeons, whose atmosphere is juxtaposed.)
The only thing to do in a generic fantasy world is restore harmony to the world, expel the less attractive race and build a really swell castle in which to dump your excessive artifacts and loot, (incidentally, the sensation of viewing a full treasury leaves me haunted by an unsatisfied feeling soon followed by a murderous rage that inevitably has tragic repercussions for the nearby NPC village inhabitants and curtails any hours spent on that game. I suspect this is what led God to become a tyrant, one should never have too much at one's disposal.) Post Apoc, with its implied acceptance that the game world is beyond the player's ability to repair, opens up endless motivations and usually leads to a more mature discovery and adventure. Hardship and struggle produce a better story, (Hermholtz Watson in Brave New World). The PC should accept their goal of becoming a hermit and not a king, and I suspect this is why Ultima IV maintains such a state of gaming perfection for me... there was a grander goal of learning and discovery trudging the wilderness, unencumbered by a sack of +1 hammers or silver necklaces to later empty onto the heads of local merchants.
Post Apoc also brings a satisfying strategical depth to the gameplay if the game forces them to make difficult choices with their resources, be it food, radiation levels, degrading weaponry, or otherwise. Comfort is an atmosphere killer. I LIKE contemplating pushing on to the next town with half hitpoints, half a potato, two diseases and a poor quality sickle. When I encounter a rabid troll-sheep hybrid, my terror is stark.**
The only thing Post Apoc needs is its continued path to diversity, and that's why I've enjoyed seeing recent entrants to the genre with threats originating not from nuclear fallout, but plant-based threats and fungi zombies, cities with harmful atmosphere's in I Am Alive,
Hawken's beautiful atmosphere (yes, it's a mech shooter... I just mean the glorious world setting), The Division set in a city only a few days or weeks after the big event. Sure, a lot of these worlds are shooters (so is Fallout now, embrace the decline), but there is some great work that's gone into the game worlds, and, in terms of immersion, that's never a bad thing.
Create a fucked up world, fill it with the unfamiliar, let the player loose... that's the thing. Just don't make a world with elves and orcs and dungeons and forests and treasure because nothing good can come of it.
* Geralt's dilemma
** but curiosity piqued. Never use traditional monsters.
The only thing to do in a generic fantasy world is restore harmony to the world, expel the less attractive race and build a really swell castle in which to dump your excessive artifacts and loot, (incidentally, the sensation of viewing a full treasury leaves me haunted by an unsatisfied feeling soon followed by a murderous rage that inevitably has tragic repercussions for the nearby NPC village inhabitants and curtails any hours spent on that game. I suspect this is what led God to become a tyrant, one should never have too much at one's disposal.) Post Apoc, with its implied acceptance that the game world is beyond the player's ability to repair, opens up endless motivations and usually leads to a more mature discovery and adventure. Hardship and struggle produce a better story, (Hermholtz Watson in Brave New World). The PC should accept their goal of becoming a hermit and not a king, and I suspect this is why Ultima IV maintains such a state of gaming perfection for me... there was a grander goal of learning and discovery trudging the wilderness, unencumbered by a sack of +1 hammers or silver necklaces to later empty onto the heads of local merchants.
Post Apoc also brings a satisfying strategical depth to the gameplay if the game forces them to make difficult choices with their resources, be it food, radiation levels, degrading weaponry, or otherwise. Comfort is an atmosphere killer. I LIKE contemplating pushing on to the next town with half hitpoints, half a potato, two diseases and a poor quality sickle. When I encounter a rabid troll-sheep hybrid, my terror is stark.**
The only thing Post Apoc needs is its continued path to diversity, and that's why I've enjoyed seeing recent entrants to the genre with threats originating not from nuclear fallout, but plant-based threats and fungi zombies, cities with harmful atmosphere's in I Am Alive,
Hawken's beautiful atmosphere (yes, it's a mech shooter... I just mean the glorious world setting), The Division set in a city only a few days or weeks after the big event. Sure, a lot of these worlds are shooters (so is Fallout now, embrace the decline), but there is some great work that's gone into the game worlds, and, in terms of immersion, that's never a bad thing.
Create a fucked up world, fill it with the unfamiliar, let the player loose... that's the thing. Just don't make a world with elves and orcs and dungeons and forests and treasure because nothing good can come of it.
* Geralt's dilemma
** but curiosity piqued. Never use traditional monsters.
Alchemist
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2013
- Messages
- 1,439
Still plenty of room left for PA games and stories to be told, in my opinion. Shift the time frame around and a lot of possibilities open up. Go beyond Mad Max, rusted metal and the color brown. What happens to a world several hundreds or thousands of years after an apocalypse? Did opportunistic alien entities seize control of earth's struggling life-forms? Did the mutated plant kingdom rise to sentience and dominance? A lot of weird shit could happen.
And the source of apocalypse need not always be nukes or zombie outbreak. Meteor strikes bearing strange alien energy, the Christian rapture, Cthulhu rises, the sun begins dying, lots of possible causes.
And let's see more Gamma World (and Erol Otus weirdness) in PA cRPGs:
And the source of apocalypse need not always be nukes or zombie outbreak. Meteor strikes bearing strange alien energy, the Christian rapture, Cthulhu rises, the sun begins dying, lots of possible causes.
And let's see more Gamma World (and Erol Otus weirdness) in PA cRPGs:
I'd like to see more Science-Fantasy Post-apoc for sure. Just no elves or dwarves - replace them with mutants and/or aliens. Mutation opens up so many possibilities for weird races - the potential is still untapped in cRPGs.
How can one not like the Dark Sun elves?
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2010
- Messages
- 21,144
Not for me. I just love to explore the ruins of the old world and see what abominations of nature have taken the place of the world's former masters. I would love a Thundarr the Barbarian style post-apocalyptic game.
Alchemist
Arcane
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- 1,439
I agree on both points. I was going to mention Thundarr but forgot to. That's definitely a flavor of PA that hasn't been fully explored yet in cRPGs.
In this case, even Forgotten Realms are post-apocalyptic. Ruins of ancient civilizations who could cast 10th level spells or mold life at will at the height of their glory cover Faerun in a mile-thick layer.
Heck, I struggle to recall a fantasy which doesn't mention uberepic ancient golden age civilizations that only left monster-infested ruins behind. This trope is as old as elves with pointed ears.
Excidium
P. banal
Difference is that we'd be that ancient civilization
- Joined
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- Messages
- 21,144
FR has new civilizations that are the primary focus though. New Vegas barely felt post-apocalyptic to me despite all the old junk laying around and it was a huge turn-off.
Cassidy
Arcane
A game inspired by Threads would bring some fresh air to the genre, without any SCIENCE!!! gimmicks, without popamole and with a raw, truly grim depiction of the future after nuclear annihilation. It could have either an ultimately hopeless attempt to survive shortly after ITZ* or the resettlement or exploration of the ruins of a completely devastated country hundred years after its annihilation as the theme, with civilization and humanity only having survived where the bombs never fell, and the original inhabitants of such country all dead, if not by the bombs and consequences of the devastation, then by the fact healthy and fertile 3rd generation children of local survivors would be zero or close to zero because of the effects of radiation**.
The dispute between expeditions of surviving nations for the territory, lost technology and knowledge of depopulated countries annihilated by nuclear war but slowly becoming inhabitable again and having their wildlife recovered to an extent as radiation reduced over the centuries, in such a setting, would be the cornerstone of a lot of choices and consequences.
*A better premise for a roguelike
**Alternatively, something akin to "Children of Man" involving that 3rd generation where everyone not stillborn is infertile plus all the lasting consequences of the nuclear war.
The dispute between expeditions of surviving nations for the territory, lost technology and knowledge of depopulated countries annihilated by nuclear war but slowly becoming inhabitable again and having their wildlife recovered to an extent as radiation reduced over the centuries, in such a setting, would be the cornerstone of a lot of choices and consequences.
*A better premise for a roguelike
**Alternatively, something akin to "Children of Man" involving that 3rd generation where everyone not stillborn is infertile plus all the lasting consequences of the nuclear war.
tuluse
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2008
- Messages
- 11,400
I think some of the people at Obsidian said it was post-post-apocalypse. They were more interested in exploring what happens when society is coming back together.
laclongquan
Arcane
One of a possible draw is this: PA put forward towns and regions in ruins that depend on character's travelling and actions to stay alive and flourish. The more character explore and advance, the more of the world come to depend on that. Therefore, the status of overpowered high level character of late game is under more pressure than other setting.
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