Quoting it in full, because this post needs to be preserved. You and I are pretty much in agreement in what makes a good *game*, and I remember one of your posts I think the new Monkey Island threads, and your remarks about old adventures were spot-on. You should post more!
Some more things that I really don't like:
I can't emphasise it enough how I despise bad and voluminous writing (I can't suffer Planescape Torment and its likes). Maybe I hate it so much *because* I like reading books, so my standards for good prose is quite high. 80s RPGs were fine because the text was short and to the point, the authors did not try to impress, prose was functional and mostly okay. Same story with most adventure games; the authors of those did not suffer from verbal diarrhea, most of the time. Of the nu-school RPGs the only ones where I was 100% happy with the writing was Gothic, Witcher 1, and Age of Decadence of the more text-heavy ones. Especially AoD — for me Vince is the best cRPG writer of all time, and I really mean it. Can't wait for Colony Ship!
RPGs have been getting just too long, for their own detriment. The trend started in the 80s; the "expected hours of playtime" figure became a selling point, unfortunately, so at some point dev studios attempted to outdo each other or themselves in terms of putting as much content into a game as they could (and possibly padding out the playtime). Well, when you optimise for one thing, that usually comes at the expense of other things. Many RPGs are just too long; I dread starting any game these days that promises 60-80-100+ hours of playtime. I want more focused experiences, 20-40 hours long is ideal, and then it wouldn't take me 3-6 months to finish it (if I ever finish).
I was on the fence about simulationism for a long time, but now I can say with certainty: I don't like it. I don't want to do boring shit in games; I like a good challenge, but ultimately I want games to be *fun*, not a chore. Maintaining your weapons and armor, managing hunger, weight, and god knows what else, that doesn't sound like my idea of fun at all. When I must get up at 6am in the cold and cycle to the train station in 5 degrees in the rain to catch the train to work — that's realistic. But is it fun though? Are you interested in reading about people's bowel problems or acid reflux in books? I don't think so — same goes for games, most of this stuff can (and should) be abstracted away.
In general, games should be fun, not "realistic". I want games to be "gamey"; when the CRPG addict writes diatribes about D&D dungeons "not making sense", and wondering why there are no shops in dungeons, or where do the monsters sleep, or some similar craziness, I'm like, hello, since when is *any* of the D&D stuff realistic? It's meant to be fun, first and foremost.
Same goes for realistic graphics. I want graphics to be *good* and characterful, but not necessarily realistic, and have very little care for 3D (but I'm not against it either when done well).
All in all, my main criteria for good cRPGS:
- party based
- turn based tactical combat OR first-person dungeon-crawler style real-time combat (I like both), but *never* real-time with pause, or full realtime (the full 3D first-person action-rpg subgenre is an exception, of course)
- preferably grid-based (I love mapping, and you can't really map non-grid based games )
- minimal to low amount of text
- story is relatively unimportant, e.g. look at the Grimrock of Eye of the Beholder games
- abstract experience, preferably 2D or isometric 3D, in rare cases full 3D (but full 3D games are restricted to single-player only)
- save anywhere, or some well-done save system like in Grimrock II
- not too long
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