Editorial Yet Another State of the RPG at GamePlayer

[ricolikesrice]

...

Operation: Darkness. Set in World War II, it sees you taking on Hitler and his army – of Nazi werewolves!

.....okay.....

 

[NiM82]

Can't wait till Bethesda evolve the genre to have 'make your own gameplay' as well - may actually be an improvement.

 

[Section8]

I simply do not see the justification of spending 40 million dollars on a game whatsoever.Especially since RPGs are mostly about good characters and story with a decent combat & interaction system underneath as the form of input by the players.

The average JRPG probably has more than 106 minutes worth of cutscenes, right? If that's the case then that $40 million dollar expense is cheap as chips compared to the $137 million Hironobu Sakaguchi squandered on The Spirits Within. I wonder how he kept that a secret from Mistwalker investors.

[edit] Heh, he has "nob", "sak" and "guch" in his name.

 

[Gragt]

Can't wait till Bethesda evolve the genre to have 'make your own gameplay' as well - may actually be an improvement.

Actually they are at thus point now when you consider that you must install 20 or more mods to make the game remotely fun.

I had an argument lately with some stupid guy who claimed that yeah the vanilla game is nothing special but with mods (and he installs a good hundred of them!) then suddenly "you can unlock Oblivion's potential". To which I replied that mods can be a nice way for fans to enhance or even modify the game but it should certainly not be the fans' job to fix the developpers' blunders and that the core game is basically broken (generic fantasy feel, not very interestng story, one dimensional quests, etc.) and to fix that you'd need to simply remake the game from scratch or better make a new game.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I really like the quote about making your own story from Bethesda considering each of their games have gotten more constrained and more linear over time. You had more of a shot at making your own destiny in Morrowind just due to the choices in the plot than you did in Oblivion. How can you honestly claim you prefer players making their own story when each step in the plot is locked in and locked down before you remove the shrink wrap from the box?

It's kind of funny how it's been 11 years since Fallout, a game where they showed you exactly how to tell a story without forcing hops through hoops, yet no developer has picked up on this and run with it. Just have a bunch of side quests, and as part of the side quests, you stumble upon pieces of the overall story of the world. It's brutally simple.

You take a mundane quest like getting a cat out of a tree, but have the cat have orc war paint on it's fur. Right then the player knows orcs are prepping for war. You take a quest where the player has to find a locket lost in a cave, and put an abandonned orc scout camp site in the cave with part of some orders partially burned up in the fire. You have the player sent to find out while Old Man Jones hasn't come in to town for supplies and find his house in the mountains has been trashed with a broken orc axe in the ruins. As the player gets closer and closer to the orc territory, steer the evidence in a new direction. Have him join a faction that has more info. It's pretty simple.

The argument that it's harder to make non-linear versus linear is rather silly when the HOW-TO was already demonstrated over a decade ago. Just take the writers that would normally work on the long, linear plot and have them making sidequests with fun info drops instead. Have the sidequests toggle quest point flags if they find the evidence to be brought up in later dialogues to probe for more info from NPCs.

ROCKET SCIENCE IT'S NOT!

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

ROCKET SCIENCE IT'S NOT!

For them it is.

 

[suleo]

More likely, for their target audience.

Remember, we're talking about people that couldn't find Caius Cosades or whatever his name was.

 

[Sarvis]

I really like the quote about making your own story from Bethesda considering each of their games have gotten more constrained and more linear over time. You had more of a shot at making your own destiny in Morrowind just due to the choices in the plot than you did in Oblivion. How can you honestly claim you prefer players making their own story when each step in the plot is locked in and locked down before you remove the shrink wrap from the box?

It's kind of funny how it's been 11 years since Fallout, a game where they showed you exactly how to tell a story without forcing hops through hoops, yet no developer has picked up on this and run with it. Just have a bunch of side quests, and as part of the side quests, you stumble upon pieces of the overall story of the world. It's brutally simple.

You take a mundane quest like getting a cat out of a tree, but have the cat have orc war paint on it's fur. Right then the player knows orcs are prepping for war. You take a quest where the player has to find a locket lost in a cave, and put an abandonned orc scout camp site in the cave with part of some orders partially burned up in the fire. You have the player sent to find out while Old Man Jones hasn't come in to town for supplies and find his house in the mountains has been trashed with a broken orc axe in the ruins. As the player gets closer and closer to the orc territory, steer the evidence in a new direction. Have him join a faction that has more info. It's pretty simple.

The argument that it's harder to make non-linear versus linear is rather silly when the HOW-TO was already demonstrated over a decade ago. Just take the writers that would normally work on the long, linear plot and have them making sidequests with fun info drops instead. Have the sidequests toggle quest point flags if they find the evidence to be brought up in later dialogues to probe for more info from NPCs.

ROCKET SCIENCE IT'S NOT!

You're clearly a leading authority on the subject, what with all the games you've created using that "pretty simple" paradigm.

Oh wait, you haven't made any and you're really just talking out your ass. Silly me.

So anyway, here's an example of what makes it a bit more complicated than you think:

In Oblivion at one point you find out that the bad guys are planning to open a bunch of Oblivion gates around a city and destroy it. In the game everything waits for you to go protect the city, and everything comes out fine.

In your plan, it would have to go two ways: either you defend the city and it's saved or you don't and it's destroyed. Really, there should be a third option... you defend the city and are only partially succesful so it's partly destroyed.

To actually PROVIDE those options means creating multiple versions of said city: one destroyed, one not destroyed, one partially destroyed (really several partially destroyed depending on which parts you succesfully defended.) So for the player to have ONE CHOICE the work for a single area of the game is <i>at least tripled</i>.

Of course, even if they'd done that you'd bitch that there was no diplomacy option where you could have a hippy lovefest and talk the demons out of destroying the city.

 

[Walkin' Dude]

Of course, even if they'd done that you'd bitch that there was no diplomacy option where you could have a hippy lovefest and talk the demons out of destroying the city.

No, that is only with rats.

 

[Zeros]

So for the player to have ONE CHOICE the work for a single area of the game is <i>at least tripled</i>.

Of course, even if they'd done that you'd bitch that there was no diplomacy option where you could have a hippy lovefest and talk the demons out of destroying the city.

The answer is of course to lower the bar and make shi--- Oblivion! of course!

The ideal thing would be not to make thousands of cities, but rather a few ones that'd actually make sense to be targets of the invasion, and then provide these things as you mentioned.

Otherwise the story is not credible. LOTR, which had a similar theme (invasion of ze evil) provided examples of how it changes stuff irrevocably, both physically and personally. Does bethesda give that? If not, then that's why beth games get the 'hollow' critiques.

Obviously it's not gonna happen, as the market seems to like huge numbers of kilometers square of explorable area, yadda yadda yadda, but oh hell.

 

[sabishii]

If you don't even make a game, then all the work you have to do goes down to zero.

 

[Sarvis]

Otherwise the story is not credible. LOTR,

LOTR only had to account for one path. It fails as an RPG.

 

[Section8]

To actually PROVIDE those options means creating multiple versions of said city: one destroyed, one not destroyed, one partially destroyed (really several partially destroyed depending on which parts you succesfully defended.) So for the player to have ONE CHOICE the work for a single area of the game is at least tripled.

Why do we have to assume the city is a single entity, rather than a collection of buildings? You don't need to interpolate between "destroyed" and "not destroyed", because the game ought to be able to handle that dynamically. Demons destroy a building? The city is partly destroyed. Demons destroy 6 more, the city is razed.

And since most of the buildings are copy/pastes of the same cookie cut building prefabs, you're looking at one or two ruined building models per city, a ruined church in Kvatch that can be used in every other city and maybe some burned versions of trees. Given that you already have the "pristine" models, creating ruined versions is trivial. Certainly a long way from triple the work.

 

[sabishii]

To actually PROVIDE those options means creating multiple versions of said city: one destroyed, one not destroyed, one partially destroyed (really several partially destroyed depending on which parts you succesfully defended.) So for the player to have ONE CHOICE the work for a single area of the game is at least tripled.

Why do we have to assume the city is a single entity, rather than a collection of buildings? You don't need to interpolate between "destroyed" and "not destroyed", because the game ought to be able to handle that dynamically. Demons destroy a building? The city is partly destroyed. Demons destroy 6 more, the city is razed.

And since most of the buildings are copy/pastes of the same cookie cut building prefabs, you're looking at one or two ruined building models per city, a ruined church in Kvatch that can be used in every other city and maybe some burned versions of trees. Given that you already have the "pristine" models, creating ruined versions is trivial. Certainly a long way from triple the work.

Could just use soil erosion on the buildings.

 

[Sarvis]

To actually PROVIDE those options means creating multiple versions of said city: one destroyed, one not destroyed, one partially destroyed (really several partially destroyed depending on which parts you succesfully defended.) So for the player to have ONE CHOICE the work for a single area of the game is at least tripled.

Why do we have to assume the city is a single entity, rather than a collection of buildings? You don't need to interpolate between "destroyed" and "not destroyed", because the game ought to be able to handle that dynamically. Demons destroy a building? The city is partly destroyed. Demons destroy 6 more, the city is razed.

And since most of the buildings are copy/pastes of the same cookie cut building prefabs, you're looking at one or two ruined building models per city, a ruined church in Kvatch that can be used in every other city and maybe some burned versions of trees. Given that you already have the "pristine" models, creating ruined versions is trivial. Certainly a long way from triple the work.

How many games can you name that have fully destructable environments?

How many of THOSE have characters within the environments that you interact with beyond shooting?

How many of THOSE have characters that interact with the destructable environment in any real fashion?

Sorry, but unless the environment is essentially just cardboard waiting to be destroyed it becomes pretty complex to allow what you're thinking of. We'll probably hit that level of technology eventually, but we're just not there yet.

 

[Zeros]

Otherwise the story is not credible. LOTR,

LOTR only had to account for one path. It fails as an RPG.

True, doesn't make the argument fail because of it though, since I was pointing at the consequences of cities being destroyed in such a path, which are not present in oblivion (the game I was commenting on): point still stands. Beth COULD have done it. They have the resources, and even the cell based engine (which I assume oblivion uses as did morrowind) and cities being in cells themselves allows for that without too much trouble.

It'd be a tradeoff between amount and quality, as it always seems to be (number of cities vs the impact of destroyed cities in the game world), but the end result would have been a much better and impactful game than what it really is right now. Instead, we get a city in an unexploded nuclear bomb crater D:

 

[RK47]

I'd love to see how Todd / Pete DM a D&D games. Really, that'd be awesome to see how they struggle with the concept of imaginary chars without grafix and swords to swing with.

 

[Sarvis]

Otherwise the story is not credible. LOTR,

LOTR only had to account for one path. It fails as an RPG.

True, doesn't make the argument fail because of it though, since I was pointing at the consequences of cities being destroyed in such a path, which are not present in oblivion

Umm.. a city was destroyed in the game. Kvatch. Destroyed...

Besides, the point here isn't whether or not the linear path in Oblivion was good or not. The point is that it would have doubled or tripled the time and money required to make a game with the multiple paths the Codex demands.

 

[Zeros]

Ah, don't know about that city since I haven't played oblivion. It'd be good to know the circumstances around its destruction though.

Again, just make the game smaller to compensate. There's no need to have eleventidy thousand villages looking the same (kind of like morrowind had in the northwestern corner of the island) if a few cities with more decent content could be done. Resources COULD have been allocated there, but beth chooses to encourage more-of-the-same things rather than unique things.

Which might not be bad in itself, but certainly should not mean insta-game/rpg of the year for their games.

 

[Sarvis]

Ah, don't know about that city since I haven't played oblivion. It'd be good to know the circumstances around its destruction though.

It's basically destroyed at the very start of the game, while you're escaping from prison or at least while you're travelling there.

The problem for the game is really one of style. Elder Scrolls games are known for free roaming gameplay, but to a large extent the plot of Oblivion (demon invasion) is just not compatible with that. Gates open, then demons just stand around doing nothing but waiting for you so that the player can have the time for all that free roaming stuff. Had they used this plot in a JRPG it would have worked better, since the player is forced on a linear path the demon invasion could have involved actual invading beyond that one city.

Again, just make the game smaller to compensate.

People don't want smaller games. They want games with 60+ hours of gameplay and tons of exploration and freedom to wander. Oblivion is popular because it provided that.

 

[Zeros]

Agreed, which is why it's probably not going to happen in any of the next "big" RPG games (by obsidian, bioware, etc). It's not what the market wants.

Doesn't mean they cannot be criticised though :D

However, sandboxes should have some degree of consequences, or either... they become oblivion

 

[Section8]

How many games can you name that have fully destructable environments?

I'm not talking about "fully destructable environments". Of course that would add a lot of work to Oblivion. Everything from the terrain up would have to be reworked.

How many of THOSE have characters that interact with the destructable environment in any real fashion?

How many characters in Oblivion interact with the non-destructible enviroment?

Sorry, but unless the environment is essentially just cardboard waiting to be destroyed it becomes pretty complex to allow what you're thinking of. We'll probably hit that level of technology eventually, but we're just not there yet.

The whole point of destroying stuff is that the player isn't there. They're neglecting the defense of the town, so the town suffers. So much more could have been done with background simulation in Oblivion, including something as simple as toggling a building to its "destroyed state" and switching the owner's AI script to "hobo", or killing them outright.

Ah, don't know about that city since I haven't played oblivion. It'd be good to know the circumstances around its destruction though.

Here's the funny part. A single Oblivion gate opens up, and a bunch of low-level Daedra spill out. They raze the entire city. As the story progresses, about half a dozen gates open up around every other fucking city, they're filled with (typically) higher level critters (because the player character ought to have gained levels since Kvatch ) and... nothing happens. Oh implausible!

 

[Zeros]

Ah, don't know about that city since I haven't played oblivion. It'd be good to know the circumstances around its destruction though.

Here's the funny part. A single Oblivion gate opens up, and a bunch of low-level Daedra spill out. They raze the entire city. As the story progresses, about half a dozen gates open up around every other fucking city, they're filled with (typically) higher level critters (because the player character ought to have gained levels since Kvatch ) and... nothing happens. Oh implausible!

Never had much hope for obliv. Not after all the retardo dumbing dow--- "streamlining", I mean. And morrowind was pretty much static all the time, so I wasn't expecting much more from them.

 

[Sarvis]

I'm not talking about "fully destructable environments". Of course that would add a lot of work to Oblivion. Everything from the terrain up would have to be reworked.

Right, right. You just want an environment where every object can be destroyed individually. There'sa huge difference between that and "fully destructable."

Of course, even just having something to switch buildings from not-destroyed to destroyed requires creating each building twice... which means you're still building the entire city twice, but with the extra complexity of code to switch the buildings and maintain their state.

Even then it wouldn't deal well with things like rubble in the streets.

Oh, and to do it RIGHT people should be rebuilding. That bugged me more than anything about KVatch... all those people stayed around to rebuild, but months later not a single piece of rubble had been moved... bleh.

How many characters in Oblivion interact with the non-destructible enviroment?

Several, actually. They'd intended to do more as well, hadn't they? Some of the RAI stuff got cut, but since they'd planned to do more with it they'd have had to plan for extra work to get it all right with changing environments.

The whole point of destroying stuff is that the player isn't there.

Except in the 3rd case, where the player is there but not doing a good job of it. You know, the case that required partial city destruction in the first place?

They're neglecting the defense of the town, so the town suffers. So much more could have been done with background simulation in Oblivion, including something as simple as toggling a building to its "destroyed state" and switching the owner's AI script to "hobo", or killing them outright.

Right, which means each building has to be created twice and you're still building the entire city twice. Or implementing fully destructable environments, then advancing all the AI scripts by a generation or two of technology to have the characters deal with changing environments.

Hell, they couldn't quite get RAI right in the environment they had... and you think they can get it right in a far more complex one?

Here's the funny part. A single Oblivion gate opens up, and a bunch of low-level Daedra spill out. They raze the entire city. As the story progresses, about half a dozen gates open up around every other fucking city, they're filled with (typically) higher level critters (because the player character ought to have gained levels since Kvatch ) and... nothing happens. Oh implausible!

Actually no, that's not what happened. Several gates opened around the city (4 or 6) and one gate was left open, with a FEW demons left behind by that one gate. They even start the process over in another town (the one from my initial example) with multiple gates opening to surround the city.

I agree that it's silly to have the gates open up and then the demons not invade or do much more than stand there. I believe I pointed that out in my last post...

BUT, like I said, you'd double or triple the work for each town in order to do it right in a Sandbox game like Oblivion. The plot would simply have worked better in a linear RPG.

 

[Section8]

Of course, even just having something to switch buildings from not-destroyed to destroyed requires creating each building twice... which means you're still building the entire city twice, but with the extra complexity of code to switch the buildings and maintain their state.

Yes, you're realising two versions of each building, but we're not talking about an equivalent workload for each. Once you have a fully modelled, undestroyed version, it's not that hard to modify the asset you've already created. Yes, it's extra work, but it's not going to break the budget.

And you're not remodelling an entire city, because for the most part, the cities are made up of copy/pastes of a very small set of buildings.

Oh, and to do it RIGHT people should be rebuilding. That bugged me more than anything about KVatch... all those people stayed around to rebuild, but months later not a single piece of rubble had been moved... bleh.

Yeah, that's very true, and all the more reason to actually track time in a meaningful way.

Several, actually. They'd intended to do more as well, hadn't they? Some of the RAI stuff got cut, but since they'd planned to do more with it they'd have had to plan for extra work to get it all right with changing environments.

RAI, by design, was intended to be a very high level scripting function, so the develop could say "Go buy food at 5pm" and the NPC figures out an appropriate way to do so. It's supposed to be able to deal with change. For instance, if The Twig and Berries gets razed to the ground, then NPCs that would normally eat there now go somewhere else. If they can't buy food anywhere, they steal it.

Except in the 3rd case, where the player is there but not doing a good job of it. You know, the case that required partial city destruction in the first place?

The cities are in isolated cells, if the player is defending against daedra, they're either in the exterior cell, or an oblivion plane cell. It's a little abstract if you never allow daedra to enter the city cells, but it's like a "watched pot".

Right, which means each building has to be created twice and you're still building the entire city twice. Or implementing fully destructable environments, then advancing all the AI scripts by a generation or two of technology to have the characters deal with changing environments.

No, you're creating each building once, modifying it once, and then placing multiple instances of the same building meshes to form a city. When the AI makes decisions, destroyed buildings are simply disregarded, just like how when an NPC decides it want to initiate a conversation with another NPC, it doesn't bother to enumerate dead NPCs.

Hell, they couldn't quite get RAI right in the environment they had... and you think they can get it right in a far more complex one?

Far more complex? As far as the AI is concerned, the only difference is an extra boolean along the lines of "isDestroyed". Sure, that causes ripples, as any dynamic change would, but the systems related to RAI were intended to be robust enough to handle it. If it was a necessity, they might have actually got it right.

BUT, like I said, you'd double or triple the work for each town in order to do it right in a Sandbox game like Oblivion. The plot would simply have worked better in a linear RPG.

You're not looking at that degree of extra work. There are simple and efficient solutions. Creating 10 unique buildings from scratch would obviously take 10 times the work of a single building, but placing 10 instances of the same building geometry is trivial.

But you're exactly right in saying that they plot they chose doesn't really work in conjunction with a sandbox world. In fact it's self-defeating to try and force any kind of epic plot into a sandbox game, when the very function of a sandbox is to emphasise dynamism.