Gamepro Feature: The 26 Best RPGs

Annie Mitsoda · Nov 12, 2008

Chefe - left for Seattle, SoCal was murdering me cost-wise and I wanted to try something different. Looking for work up here, got a few intriguing opportunities. I'll let you guys know where I land, presuming anyone gives two shits in a hat.

IWD2 I know for sure was Sawyer's game, as well as the upcoming Aliens RPG, and trust me when I say that what he did to save NWN2 and get it out the door was nothing short of amazing (I have mad respect for Josh, and I think he's underappreciated as a designer. In my time working with the man every chat with him has been a reminder that the dude is badass and knows his shit). Brian Mitsoda's work - and mine - is no longer in Alpha Protocol due to a game direction change and MCA tackling the new writing/rewriting, but also my good friend Travis Stout is doing writing for that as well (Travis is rad btw). So you'll see MCA's work in that, but not mine & Mitsoda's. Glee or sigh at that as you will, Codexers! Glee or sigh.

Anyhow. I'm starting to sound like Professor Farnsworth. Shutting up now, oh my, yes.

Chefe · Nov 12, 2008

Of course we care. The developer interaction is the only reason I became interested in SoZ and just bought NWN2 through amazon (for SoZ, of course, I hear the NWN2 OC is horrible... no offense). It's good to hear from people who can actually do something within our most beloved genre.

That's great news about Alpha Protocol. In addition to all the wonderful design decisions we've been privvy to, it's only icing on the cake to know that your work and Mitsoda's has been thrown out the window. I was so excited about that amazing and unique game before and the directions it has moved it, and this has only made me more excited and full of glee. :sarcasm:

onemananadhisdroid · Nov 12, 2008

St. Toxic said:
By marginalizing genre definitions and broadening the categories, the producers gain alot more space in their attempts to reach the consumer base.

That's the defensive take on this. Probably fueled by myriads of Bethsoft quotes like: "We can't do that." or "Turn-based combat doesn't sell" or "Fuck you all, Codexers". While in truth, there's nothing to worry about in admitting that labels are nothing more but a handy tool for us humans as we can hardly ever tell left from right anyway. Oh, and let's not forget that labels make for good marketing tools as well - without snazzy catch-phrases tailor-made for the back of the box, the publisher of Orcs VS Humans - Heads On Pikes Eleven and Orcs VS Humans - They're Back:Revolutions! might have even more of a problem in getting anybody intersted in their game at all.

Given the nature of these labels, you're gonna make a premium ass out of yourself by resorting to any holier-than-thou-rethorics on the topoic at hand. The term pissing contest has been brought up before for good reason. It's also certainly not just "RPGs" which just cannot seriously be pigeon-holed into a single box whoever made up whenever. Crowther's Colossal Cave Adventure, which many claim to be the grandaddy of Adventure Games was in fact to large parts that man's attempt to translate his D&D adventures to a computer screen. He just didn't bother with bringing all the Pen&Paper trappings too: to-hit-rolls, more numbers-crunshing than in Maths class, we know that drill. The irony in there is two-fold at the very least.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's actually a healthy thing: everything has and will continue to be just a loose concept, a melting pot of ideas which is what spawned variety and some games you liked the most, while we're at that in the first place. Variety isn't made of brick walls built around certain ideas. That is an argument for endless repetition - and an excuse for designers who couldn't come up with half a decent idea even if their cookie cutter game depended on it. Another favourite of mine is Looking Glass' Thief that in large parts came about due to a perceived laziness of RPG developers of that period. As some of the heads at Looking Glass felt that translating some P&P rules to a computer screen and planting some dialogue trees for the player to get caught in sure didn't cut it. Not that bad a game Thief is, actually. Or so I heard.

Or as God himself put it:

Tim Schafer said:
People shouldn't cry for any "genre". Be loyal to the concept of quality and imagination, not a scheme for mouse control.

Vaarna_Aarne · Nov 12, 2008

Dark Individual said:
Fat Dragon said:

One of the Obsidian guys here needs to remind Chris that this place is still around and that he needs to start posting here. Would be interesting to know his reactions to being the Codex's only god. Plus, he makes awesome doodle comics.

Click to expand...

He maybe the chief god, but there's still many around here who worship Troika.

Troika is dead

cry

, Chris Avellone is very much alive.

Andyman Messiah · Nov 12, 2008

Fat Dragon said:
Other than PS:T, why is Chris popular?

Click to expand...

For making a truly superb game like PST I think he's definitely earned the respect he gets. It's not everyday somebody makes a game that good.

He's also really handsome.

Damned Registrations · Nov 12, 2008

Annie Carlson said:
Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter sucked, in my opinion, but NOT because it had features defining it as a JRPG: it sucked because it required the player actually start over MULTIPLE times in order to get any kind of sense of what the crap was going on with the story, as well as other elements that caused it to be a disappointment to me as a game. Its existence as a console RPG also is no cause to get it waved off as a bad game. Judge games on their own virtues, not on the elements of the subgenre they purport to belong to, I guess is what I'm sayin'.

Actually, you only need to start over once to access the rest of the story, as long as you didn't suck ass and save 50 times, take 20 hours to finish, fail at all the premptive strikes, miss all the chests, etc. that you got ranked on.

The game certainly had some very lame things about it. The combat was extremely tedious, given the very limited range of actually useful techniques to be used in fighting. There was no real customization to speak of despite the number of skills available, due to horrid balance. The game also suffered a lot from relying on player memorization of previous failed trials to be played through efficiently.

However, despite all that, it was probably the last jrpg I truly enjoyed, and easily my favourite on that console. The way the plot unfolded was excellent- it never suffered from any extraneous goals added in to pad out the length of the game. Every moment in the game is spent with one goal in mind, and everything builds towards an excellent climax. By comparison, every other BoF game was about 3/4ths stupid fetch quests to progress the story you were so distanced from by said quests you had no attachment to it or the characters.

Most jrpgs suffer from that trait more than anything else. Nobody likes being told the princess is in another castle, especially not for 20 hours in a row. Otherwise they're pretty good if you pick out the nice ones- they tend to offer interesting combat (Or painlessly quick when it's not interesting),decent character or party customization, some nice exploration elements in the endgame from sidequests, and a decent main plot if it weren't so muddled by stopping to find the magic key to open the dungeon with the imprisoned hermit who knows the name of the blacksmith who can make the sword to kill the golem that happens to be standing between the party and whatever place is actually RELEVANT to the main plot.

Murk · Nov 12, 2008

st. toxic: a true patriot

PorkaMorka · Nov 12, 2008

Annie Carlson said:
This came up again a long while back when I was having a disagreement with a former* lead designer who wanted stuff in a game simply because he defended it as being "more RPG." I seriously nearly flipped over the conference table with rage. RPGs are the LEAST well-defined genre in the history of ever, and have so many elements that are branded with that type that calling something "more RPG" is the most blandy-bland nondefininable statement in the history of ever, something that stirs up so much controversy and growling that to me it seems pointless to really waste energy defending any group of characteristics, and instead focus on what one wants for a user experience and defend THAT, piece by piece. (hello run-on sentence, btw)

I dunno, "more RPG" could be a useful verbal shorthand, depending on what was being discussed.

If for example you were debating how to determine if an attack hit the opponent and there were two options:
a) based on your character's attack stats
b) based on the player's ability to hit buttons at proper times or click with the mouse.

One could easily reasonably say that option a is "more RPG" than option b and I think almost anyone who was viewing his statements in good faith and with a familiarity with the genre would understand exactly what he meant and have to concede it was a valid point (albeit one that may be secondary to other concerns, such as profitability or appeal to gamers in certain age brackets).

Thus I believe you can say with confidence something along the lines of "Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation for GBA is 'more RPG' than Zone of the Enders: Fist of Mars for GBA".

(those being two games which are almost identical in every aspect of gameplay, except for the fact that in SRT when two units battle, the result is determined by their stats and in Zone the result is determined by the player aiming a little crosshair at the opponent's mech that is flying around dodging.

Not knowing what was discussed and living as we do in an era where so very many recent RPGs have been heavily diluted by the addition of action elements and the loss of traditional RPG elements, my inclination is to side with your coworker. Keep in mind that what you thought was less fun, he may well have thought was more fun, as what someone considers fun is highly subjective.

Xi · Nov 12, 2008

onemananadhisdroid said:
While in truth, there's nothing to worry about in admitting that labels are nothing more but a handy tool for us humans as we can hardly ever tell left from right anyway.

Genres are a form of communication. The customer knows what to expect. So when a genre can also mean so many different types of experiences, it also fails to communicate what kind of experience the customer should expect.

Explicitly defining a genre would promote better games in that genre as it would allow developers to focus on developing a game that meets the standards of the implied definition. It's the same as studying patterns to derive a stronger sense of what it may mean. This stronger sense of meaning would, or at least I believe so, translate into more depth of RPG design. Without a pattern to begin with, though, it would just be a sloppy process.(As it currently is!)

Creating a solid genre definition would translate into a standard that RPGs would try to live up to. As it stands, the definition is so weak that almost anything goes. It's practically meaningless.

It's like a child learning the word cat. In their own minds, they perceive a cat to be anything that's furry. This is until their mind develops enough to differentiate the specific features, that make the meaning of what a cat what it is, more strictly applied. I believe the industry is in this stage of child development at the moment. It defines an RPG as many things that, at least in my mind, aren't RPGs, or are so void of RPG features they might as well be called something else.(Many of those top 26 games are good examples.)

Anyway....

opium fiend · Nov 12, 2008

Fat Dragon said:
Other than PS:T, why is Chris popular?

Click to expand...

For making a truly superb game like PST I think he's definitely earned the respect he gets. It's not everyday somebody makes a game that good.

I remember reading somewhere, maybe even here, that Torment isn't only MCA's child, and that it's Brian Fargo who, though uncredited, was actually the one behind the greatness. Maybe I'm completely wrong, so can anybody explain?

JarlFrank · Nov 12, 2008

Vaarna_Aarne said:
Dark Individual said:

Fat Dragon said:

One of the Obsidian guys here needs to remind Chris that this place is still around and that he needs to start posting here. Would be interesting to know his reactions to being the Codex's only god. Plus, he makes awesome doodle comics.

Click to expand...

He maybe the chief god, but there's still many around here who worship Troika.

Click to expand...

Troika is dead cry, Chris Avellone is very much alive.

They live on as long as we keep them in our hearts. True death only comes through being forgotten, by being drowned in the vast sea of history. As long as a spark of faith remains, there will be hope; and where there is hope, there will always be a chance of rebuilding.

onemananadhisdroid · Nov 12, 2008

The customer knows what to expect.

Yupp, as said, labels serve their purpose. But really, there's a point where lines get crossed. It's when we're talking about allegiance. Allegiance is creepy. It breeds contempt and a pile of mediocrity. I'd rather see that costumer buy three copies of Psychonauts than RPG Odyssey Oh-Eight Fifteen: "Dear Lord! It's kind of like Fallout!"

Xi said:
Explicitly defining a genre would promote better games in that genre as it would allow developers to focus on developing a game that meets the standards of the implied definition. .

Like a strict formula of what constitutes a rock-solid RPG™? Dragons: Check. Turn-based combat: check. Choice&consequenses: check. Checkerboard textures on everything except those Elven boobies: check. Sounds as fresh and exciting a springboard for flourishing ideas a plenty as it is. Sounds exactly like wildly different games such as Torment, Icewind Dale, Fallout, Wizardry and Nethack came about. Nah, kidding. There's plenty cookie cutter games out there already though. Seems like there's just a disagreement in terms of formula here.

It defines an RPG as many things that, at least in my mind, aren't RPGs, or are so void of RPG features they might as well be called something else.

You make that sound as if developers would be making the games they make just to make some of you people go nuts. That in and on itself sounds pretty absurd, nothing personal, mind you. I mean, could it rather be that they just have a difference vision of..... nah. They simply don't get that R neither P neither G in their RPG, apparently.

opium fiend said:
I remember reading somewhere, maybe even here, that Torment isn't only MCA's child,

Above all, like Wasteland it's an offspring from someone who clearly played a lot of INFOCOM games. Take that, pure, classic, traditional RPG traditionalists!

Kaiserin · Nov 12, 2008

Fat Dragon said:
The Codex is indeed for fags.

I see what you did there.

Texas Red · Nov 12, 2008

Annie Carlson said:
ALSO to the best of my understanding, "MCA" is MISTER Chris Avellone. And there are MANY handsome/beautiful folks who work/have worked at Obsidian. Hottie Central.

You made a fatal slip there. You basically admitted having the hots for Christ Avellone.

JarlFrank · Nov 12, 2008

Dark Individual said:
Annie Carlson said:

ALSO to the best of my understanding, "MCA" is MISTER Chris Avellone. And there are MANY handsome/beautiful folks who work/have worked at Obsidian. Hottie Central.

Click to expand...

You made a fatal slip there. You basically admitted having the hots for Christ Avellone.

If I was female I'd have a crush on him too.

MetalCraze · Nov 12, 2008

Annie Carlson said:
ALSO to the best of my understanding, "MCA" is MISTER Chris Avellone

Wasn't it Michael Chris Avellone or something? I also remember VtmB (or less likely - Arcanum) having a reference to MCA in a form of a writer called Michael Avellone that went missing

EDIT: Or I'm wrong actually.

Black · Nov 12, 2008

I'm male and I have crush on him.

JarlFrank · Nov 12, 2008

I rather think of it as MASTER Chris Avellone.

Also, Christ Avellone is a lot more appropriate than simply Chris.

MetalCraze · Nov 12, 2008

No.
Because "Planescape should have more combat"
Much like Garriot and Cain he totally lost it.

Hümmelgümpf · Nov 12, 2008

http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?s= ... t&p=835028

J.E. Sawyer said:
MCA = Master of Ceremonies Avellone or Mic Controller Avellone, after MCA from Beastie Boys. I don't think anyone came up with it for him internally.

The Black Isle rap name for Avellone was Cube DCube.

Vaarna_Aarne · Nov 12, 2008

JarlFrank said:
Vaarna_Aarne said:

Dark Individual said:

Fat Dragon said:

One of the Obsidian guys here needs to remind Chris that this place is still around and that he needs to start posting here. Would be interesting to know his reactions to being the Codex's only god. Plus, he makes awesome doodle comics.

Click to expand...

He maybe the chief god, but there's still many around here who worship Troika.

Click to expand...

Troika is dead cry, Chris Avellone is very much alive.

Click to expand...

They live on as long as we keep them in our hearts. True death only comes through being forgotten, by being drowned in the vast sea of history. As long as a spark of faith remains, there will be hope; and where there is hope, there will always be a chance of rebuilding.

The legend will never die.

No.
Because "Planescape should have more combat"
Much like Garriot and Cain he totally lost it.

Actually the bottom line in the interviews seems to be that a) PS:T's combat should have been better (and you know the combat sucks), which (with more optional combat) would lead to b) also having a playthrough type for the more... Let's call them "mainstream" gamers.

Xor · Nov 12, 2008

Being able to skip fighting in the modron cube would have been nice.

I still fucking hate that place.

Gragt · Nov 12, 2008

Xor said:
Being able to skip fighting in the modron cube would have been nice.

I still fucking hate that place.

Good thing it's optional.

Xor · Nov 12, 2008

Gragt said:
Xor said:

Being able to skip fighting in the modron cube would have been nice.

I still fucking hate that place.

Click to expand...

Good thing it's optionnal.

I like Nordom, though.

Annie Mitsoda · Nov 12, 2008

Dark Individual said:
Annie Carlson said:

ALSO to the best of my understanding, "MCA" is MISTER Chris Avellone. And there are MANY handsome/beautiful folks who work/have worked at Obsidian. Hottie Central.

Click to expand...

You made a fatal slip there. You basically admitted having the hots for Christ Avellone.

Hey now. "Fatal" nothing. Chris is a cutie, and he's got pretty eyes, and I won't deny it. All I'm saying is Obsidian's had/has some OTHER super-cuties working there too. I've had friends ask me excitedly if Josh Sawyer is single (no, he's taken, sorry ladies), guys drool over Fryda Wolff (also taken, HA HA), and my personal favorite, the tall and dashing Brian Mitsoda (who is also taken. Hee). AND THAT IS JUST THE LIST OF PEOPLE WHOSE PICTURES ARE READILY AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNETS. There are so many other hawtsauce folks at Obsidian, I could spend threads dropping their names. But I'll just tantalize you with that.

See, the conversation here about defining genre, I LIKE THIS. It leaves the English major part of my brain all a-tingle. Xi's example about a child learning the word "cat" is particularly excellent. It's similar to how I went about attempting to define the difference between sci-fi and fantasy, which gets pretty fuzzy when you consider that in in many ways, Star Wars fills tropes more similar to fantasy (like THE FORCE) than sci-fi - basically what it boiled down to was "the definition of genre encompasses more than simply their visual elements (i.e. dragons, lasers, magic, shit like that)."

Shit. Now I'm going to go read through my old paper and jot down shit I should have mentioned because I'm an enormous fucking nerd, and the subject intrigues me.

/NEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRD

Gamepro Feature: The 26 Best RPGs

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