The RPG Genre is seriously fuck up man

[Darth Roxor]

Now, how fucking fun would, for example, Doom (a shooter, remember) be, if you didn't have any guns, and each level would have a 'run for your life, get some keycards and find the exit!' objective.

About as fun as a RPG without C&C and tactics, probably.

Why, yes, definitely, thanks for proving my point.

And if you now come up with 'DUNG-ON KRAWLURZ DUN NEED TACTIX!!111' it'll only show how fucking full of shit you are.

 

[mondblut]

Dungeon crawlers do have literature, whether you like it or not. Bad literature. Might be why you hate it so much.

Dungeon crawlers suck at literature and hypertext browsers suck at gaming. That's why I choose dungeon crawlers when gaming I do.

One understands dungeon crawlers the moment one learns arithmetics.

One understands hypertext browser the moment one learns one letter from another

Exactly. Fantasy wargaming is not role-playing.

Well, we are not responsible for misnaming this genre "the role-playing games" back in seventies. Find the one who did and send your lawyers after him. We would gladly sue him as well, for attracting all kinds of pretentious artfags to our hobby.

 

[Castanova]

Hory's entire argument revolves around that dungeon crawlers are just math and, since 6 year olds can do math, 6 year olds can play dungeon crawlers effectively. Except he forgot about the analogous argument: C&C is just reading and, since 6 year olds can read, 6 year olds can play C&C games effectively. This thread: 6 pages of Hory's strawman.

Fact is, Hory continues to describe a game that doesn't exist. A dream game where NPCs act like real people, present true challenges in dialog. A simulation. Fallout, Planescape, Arcanum, whatever. None of these games meet the criteria that Hory is touting here. It's like Hory's argument boils down to: every RPG in existence is for children. It's just that certain RPGs are for older children.

Hory, the reason you're being called a LARPer is not because you dress up like an Elf and frolic in your local public park with a plastic sword. The reason you're a LARPer is because you're playing RPGs like Fallout on your computer and, in your mind, you're experiencing amazing choices & consequences and tactical combat, the likes of which are a feast for the true intellectual. You're LARPing a person playing C&C simulators while you're really just playing an isometric RPG with fewer combat situations than usual.

 

[JarlFrank]

What I don't understand is how he degrades dungeon crawlers to numbers only.

Last time I played a dungeon crawler I had to use the skills of my party effectively in order to win a battle. Just being good at maths didn't really help.

 

[Fyz]

A highschool classmate I had sucked at math, literature and english, yet completed crawlers like the MM games, and finished games like Fallout and BG.
Let me rephrase that - he completed story and C&C based games barely understanding the text that was written.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Dungeon crawlers suck at literature and hypertext browsers suck at gaming.

Clicking on spells is gaming, clicking on dialog option is not gaming.

Wonderful logic.

 

[Wyrmlord]

He said it sucks at gaming, not that it is not gaming.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Fine...

Clicking on spells is good gaming, clicking on dialog options is not good gaming.

Yeah, the logic is SO much better now.

 

[Hory]

Also, Hory...
you previously mentioned "RPG without tactics". So generally, what you dislike most are the blob-combat crawlers, right? Would you play and enjoy an RPG with combat as its main component and a small amount of character interaction [with meaningful C&C], if it was isometric, terrain had an effect and you actually had to use your characters' abilities to succeed? [like, where more things count than just numbers and you have to think and use tactics] I wonder about that, because you never directly attack the combat, only the "you only have to calculate to win".

I probably would play that, but not if it was another D&D adaptation or LotR-setting ripoff. E.g. ToEE.

Why, yes, definitely, thanks for proving my point.

However, DUNG-ON KRAWLURZ DUN NEED TACTIX!!111

Hory's entire argument revolves around that dungeon crawlers are just math and, since 6 year olds can do math, 6 year olds can play dungeon crawlers effectively.

That's just the exaggerated version of the argument, but it's not far from the truth, unfortunately. The serious version is that dungeon crawling is largely a dumb activity.

Except he forgot about the analogous argument: C&C is just reading and, since 6 year olds can read, 6 year olds can play C&C games effectively.

Wrong, C&C is about reading, understanding and interacting. Simple example of just reading: me playing SC2 as a kid, and not being able to finish it because I didn't really understand enough and was unable to interact accordingly. And C&C doesn't even have to be about reading! Choices don't have to be presented nor chosen textually. Even attacking a NPC is a "choice" - which in dungeon crawler usually has no consequence other than other NPCs might become hostile.

Fact is, Hory continues to describe a game that doesn't exist. A dream game where NPCs act like real people, present true challenges in dialog.

Whether it exists or not doesn't influence my argument that dungeon crawlers are retarded. And these games do exist - P&P RPGs. And if you mean video games only, try Facade.

It's like Hory's argument boils down to: every RPG in existence is for children. It's just that certain RPGs are for older children.

Most RPGs can be enjoyed by children. Some RPGs can be enjoyed by adults, but dungeon crawlers are usually enjoyed by taste-lacking no-life adults.

Hory, the reason you're being called a LARPer is not because you dress up like an Elf and frolic in your local public park with a plastic sword. The reason you're a LARPer is because you're playing RPGs like Fallout on your computer and, in your mind, you're experiencing amazing choices & consequences and tactical combat, the likes of which are a feast for the true intellectual. You're LARPing a person playing C&C simulators while you're really just playing an isometric RPG with fewer combat situations than usual.

I know why he calls me a LARPer. But I still like to laugh at his inability to use words with their correct meaning.

What I don't understand is how he degrades dungeon crawlers to numbers only.

Last time I played a dungeon crawler I had to use the skills of my party effectively in order to win a battle. Just being good at maths didn't really help.

I claim that the actions you must take in battle are effectively so obvious, straightforward and repetitive, in dungeon crawlers, as to not even be considered as a gameplay element worthy of being mentioned. There are a lot of enemies in one place, you cast fireball. Do they have fire protection? You cast the next most powerful spell for which they don't have resistence. Does their mage have the highest damage? Attack him first. And so on. As I said, this is so simple a bot could be scripted to do it. Yet everyone likes to pretend how much more smarter thy are than Oblivion fans, because they play games with a lot of numbers.

 

[Robot]

FUCK YOU GUYS I SAID STOP CALLING ARITHMETIC MATH

 

[Fyz]

I claim that the actions you must take in battle are effectively so obvious, straightforward and repetitive, in dungeon crawlers, as to not even be considered as a gameplay element worthy of being mentioned. There are a lot of enemies in one place, you cast fireball. Do they have fire protection? You cast the next most powerful spell for which they don't have resistence. Does their mage have the highest damage? Attack him first. And so on. As I said, this is so simple a bot could be scripted to do it. Yet everyone likes to pretend how much more smarter thy are than Oblivion fans, because they play games with a lot of numbers.

But the combat in those C&C games is the same, or on most cases even worse than in combat focused crawlers. And said games which rely heavily on dialogue can be completed by people who barely know english.

 

[Hory]

But the combat in those C&C games is the same, or on most cases even worse than in combat focused crawlers.

Yes, but in those games, combat-related tasks don't take the vast majority of your time. When they do, the game starts sucking, e.g. KOTOR.

And said games which rely heavily on dialogue can be completed by people who barely know english.

I don't know, has someone who barely understood English finish Fallout? Even if it were so, it wouldn't matter, because the goal of a narrative game isn't to simply beat it. It's to enjoy the entire journey and eventually reach a self-determined status. How can one who doesn't understand it do that?

 

[Fyz]

Yes, but in those games, combat-related tasks don't take the vast majority of your time. When they do, the game starts sucking, e.g. KOTOR.

Well combat took a huge part of my gametime in Arcanum and Bloodlines. Even though it could have been worse as in NWN OC.

I don't know, has someone who barely understood English finish Fallout? Even if it were so, it wouldn't matter, because the goal of a narrative game isn't to simply beat it. It's to enjoy the entire journey and eventually reach a self-determined status. How can one who doesn't understand it do that?

A classmate I had completed it, as I mentioned several posts above. He mostly enjoyed it because of the diversity in weapons, armours and combat syles - the same reason he enjoyed crawlers like MM or pure action RPG's like Diablo.

 

[Rohit_N]

no-lifer

no-lifer

taste-lacking no-life adults.

I respect your opinions, but as Castanova said, you've spent 6 pages debating the merits of a game genre that you personally don't like, and telling its defenders that they're wrong, and "not a learning animal" after several years of what you call "progression".

Can't we agree that none of us have a life by posting on a forum about what amounts to entertainment, when we can be enriching our lives in other ways?

 

[Castanova]

I claim that the actions you must take in battle are effectively so obvious, straightforward and repetitive, in dungeon crawlers, as to not even be considered as a gameplay element worthy of being mentioned.

You've repeatedly made this claim and no one has called you on it. Perhaps this applies to easy dungeon crawlers, but otherwise... if it's so easy to script this dungeon-crawling-beater bot then why isn't the AI smarter in these types of games? (And don't give me shit about games being easy these days. AI in older, harder dungeon crawlers is nothing spectacular either.)

I'll tell you why. There's more to combat than damage dice rolls. You have to manage turns, time, damage, defense. You have to juggle healing versus offense versus defense versus avoidance versus escape. When you make a combat decision, Hory, a lot more goes into your own decision than you appear to be aware of. That's becoming painfully clear.

That's not to say you need to be brilliant to beat a dungeon crawler. But it is pretty clear to anyone with practical knowledge of automation that your decisions as a player are not as simple as 1 2 3. It's time for you to come off your badly supported offensive against dungeon crawling because none of your arguments are rooted in supportable fact.

It'd be easier for you to admit that C&C has no objective advantage over dungeon crawling in terms of challenge, intellectual stimulation, or fun. Rather, it seems to be something to do with your personality that causes you to enjoy, as a primary focus, the process of manipulating the fake lives of make-believe characters.

 

[octavius]

Hory, you sound like the same people who have taken over the shooter genre today.

Replacing a few words in your quote:

I just wanted to flame people who still play and enjoy find-the-key shooters today. Just like I'd flame someone who still plays a lot of Doom, even if Doom was a good game for it's time. Or someone who actively seeks to enjoy platformers, even if they were good for their time.

But anyway, current state of the shooter genre: games where you are taken through triggered scripted situations and observe cutscenes in a first-person view. They are now about a movie-like narrative exposition, and the number of enemies you kill in each level can be counted on your fingers.

Which is why I stopped playing new PFS shooter many years ago.

Hory sounds like those idiots who when asked what music they like anwer "oh, whatever is on the top 20 list".

 

[Hory]

no-lifer

no-lifer

taste-lacking no-life adults.

I know that I'm repeating those words. But you can understand that I see no reason to try and invent a new one on each occasion.

I respect your opinions, but as Castanova said, you've spent 6 pages debating the merits of a game genre that you personally don't like, and telling its defenders that they're wrong, and "not a learning animal" after several years of what you call "progression".

... and?

Can't we agree that none of us have a life by posting on a forum about what amounts to entertainment, when we can be enriching our lives in other ways?

Indeed, myself included. But at least I respect my time enough not to waste it on mindless chores.

Hory sounds like those idiots who when asked what music they like anwer "oh, whatever is on the top 20 list".

They must have a pretty varied selection in top 20s these days, then.

 

[xuerebx]

I'll salute you on your diverse music selection.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Lo-Fi: 1

now I'm curious

 

[Hory]

It's a one hour long compilation, "Sci-Fi Lo-Fi". It isn't even lo-fi, it's some kind of rock & roll. I don't know why I kept it there. Also I notice "Lounge" (where I usually put the lo-fi) is missing completely. I'm in the process of reorganizing the genres, probably will be adding about 5 new fusion ones, like Country Blues, Hip Hop Jazz and Blues Rock.

 

[octavius]

Imagine a shooter with no guns, different levels and shit. No one would play it.

The early part in HL2 where you don't have a weapon and are chased by the fascist police through those communist flats is just as good, if not better, than the rest of the game.

HL2 is the most overhyped and overrated game of all time.
The scripted beginning is boring, and once you are finally let loose from the shackles it's more like an advanture game than an PFS or CRPG. It has a good physics engine, but what is the use when you can't use the environment in a meaningful way? Pushing a washing machine off a ledge so that some wooden planks align in such a manner that you can progress to the next level? Even the hated Oblivion has a physics engine that can be made good use of the elimimate enemies, or yourself if not careful.

 

[St. Toxic]

But at least I respect my time enough not to waste it on mindless chores.

 

[Hory]

Well, we are not responsible for misnaming this genre "the role-playing games" back in seventies. Find the one who did and send your lawyers after him. We would gladly sue him as well, for attracting all kinds of pretentious artfags to our hobby.

Such as the artfags that made Wizardry 7? R00fles.

 

[mondblut]

That just shows how deeply this retarded "pretending to be a character" bullshit had entrenched in minds by the late-80s when Bradley designed games. So entrenched it was repeated without actually thinking over the absurdity of it. "You create characterS to role play". Yeah, right, all six of them. All at once or taking turns?

Hey, even I believed this crap just several years ago.

 

[Temoid]

Really don't get dungeon crawler bashing. Dungeon Crawl : Stone Soup, a roguelike, provided a fresh experience on every playthrough and never ceased to be challenging- you could die in several "moves" at any time. If I recall correctly, half the numbers in the game were not even visible, instead described with phrases as to what your character could do. Granted, it was rather easy to figure out what's what, but at the end of the day the massive classless character creation as well as challenging gameplay kept me hooked. And I didn't have to pretend to be a "cerebral" gamer who curls up his pinkie and covers up the face with a handkerchief as soon as he is presented with something less literary than the awesome greatness of PST or Dickens.

Ultimately, if done right, dungeon crawlers can be absolutely engrossing.