What is truly left to us RPG gamers?

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

This is rather a concern of mine as I really have seen the quality of RPGs decline in the past ten years, and I say that a lot of the blame lies on conglomerates like EA.


There were a lot of nice, small developers that made excellent RPGs, but many don't exist anymore...


Origin Systems - Disbanded

Black Isle Studios - Dissolved

Looking Glass Studios - Defunct

Westwood Studios - Liquidated

Bioware - Bought out by EA

Bullfrog Studios - Merged with EA



And these were just developers I could think of that I had any experience with. So what are we left with?

EA - No need to say anything here on the horrible quality of THEIR games.

SquareEnix - Staying alive, I suspect, pretty much to the Final Fantasy series which has gone downhill in quality severely.

Obsidian Entertainment - Crappy studios with crappy games I could never get into.

Blizzard - Oh yeah, HERE'S a good choice. Spend $60 for a copy of WoW and then have to expect to pay an additional monthly fee? When was the last time Blizzard came out with a single-player RPG, or at least something that doesn't drain a gamer's wallet?

And (in my opinion) our shining star, Bethesda. Perhaps the last good RPG developer/publisher out there. Oblivion was a fun game to play, Fallout 3 was good, Fallout: New Vegas I enjoyed, Morrowind was good in its day, and Skyrim appears to be nice as well. (You might say TES are getting monotonous, but I like their idea and setup.)


I would mention Gas Powered Games here except that I have turned my back on them for not being involved in Dungeon Siege III. Yet another good series Obsidian Entertainment has ruined. (The other, of course, being Neverwinter Nights.)


If you feel like you have anything to add to this list, either in good RPG game publishers lost to the nostalgic sands of time, or to add ones you say might be good that are still kicking, you are more than welcome to.

 

[Lenny]

Since 1997, Origin existed mainly to provide support for their last big game, Ultima Online.

Black Isle may have been dissolved but, as usually happens in the games industry, many of the developers moved with the founders to a new studio, Obsidian.

Looking Glass haven't developed anything for over a decade and it's been even longer since their last truly big game, which itself was built in partnership with another company - Irrational Games.

A good number of devs at Westwood moved to EA Los Angeles when Westwood closed, and have been working on some pretty big games (although they weren't RPGs).

Bullfrog were never in the business of RPGs - they developed RTS games. Their last game was three years before EA merged them into EA UK.

Now BioWare are not even close to dead and buried. They've seen fantastic growth over the past few years whilst also being allowed to keep their own branding and follow their own creative direction, yet still keep the backing of a major player with considerable resources. In no way are they out of the game.

An interesting point, which you might not like, is that Fallout: New Vegas was developed solely by the "crappy studio with crappy games" Obsidian. Bethesda's involvement doesn't go any further than publishing the game and releasing a few patches. Obviously, being made of devs from the studio that originally created the Fallout series, it's no surprise that Obisidian's New Vegas is so widely liked.

You forget studios like Irrational, who make the highly successful BioShock series.

---

Quick thought, because I'm late for lunch - the market is moving away from RPGs and into FPS and sandbox games. It has been doing for the past decade or so. You can't pin it all on a studio like EA who, I might add, have been increasing the quality of all their games for some years.

 

[TheTomG]

It's a shame, that move toward the FPS. I love RPGs, after all living out the lives of other characters is exactly what being an author is all about! I used to love jumping into the regular MMOs and finding the people there who would actually role play, who would go and tell stories with their characters beyond the quests of the games. You know, play a role.

I was always hoping that the growth of affordable computer power would see role play take off, with characters in games and worlds, even, become open to allow input that went beyond what the developers had thought of and pre-programmed in advance, but this hasnt really come to pass, to my disappointment.

I like sandbox games as they head in that direction, and would love to see those continue, and fuse into the RPG genre. I enjoyed Red Dead Redemption for instance, and how cool it would be to have that online with other players, and a world system that really responded and changed depending on what our characters did. Build our own towns. Find our own mines, and stake our claims and start our mining companies. Try to drive the farmers off the land so we can have the gold or iron beneath, or build our railroads. Hire, or be, the bandits who rob stagecoaches, or terrorize locals.

I say put that online because no matter how clever an NPC gets, it will never beat the fun, creativity, unpredictability and imagination of another human being!

I have hope that brave developers will again push the bounds of what is meant by an RPG, even what is meant by a game, and we will see some of my dreams turn into reality

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Yes, I did about forget Obsidian's role in New Vegas, which when I played I had seen it as a sort of salvation for them. But I still say they could have done far better on Dungeon Siege III and NWN2.


And I wasn't placing all the blame on big companies like EA and Interplay (the ones responsible for dissolving Black Isle), but quite a bit of it. It doesn't really matter to me if those employees of those studios had moved to their big companies, I haven't seen too much quality out of them. Come to think of it, I don't know the last time I've seen an Interplay title...


And as for "quality" in EA...take a look at DA 2. If you think that's quality, then I'm a blind chicken. DA:O was a good game, I loved the character interactions, the humor it held, I enjoyed the combat style, the inventory screens and level up systems were easy to understand and use. I even kind of enjoyed the character art of the whole thing.

DA 2? I SUPPOSE the character art was decent...but that was about it. They complicated the inventory and level up system, they had hardly any useful skill trees, the dialogue choices I felt sucked big time, and the combat system was needlessly complicated as opposed to DA:O and DA:A, and I found it hard to use.

And as for the big push to MMOs...now I really don't mind MMOs. Honestly. Ironically enough, Ultima, one of my favorite game series (at least Ultimas 4-7SI), I found responsible for the big MMO burst. Some might say Everquest started it, but U:O was online before they were. The trouble is, when MMOs require a monthly fee to pay, like Everquest and WoW. Now before you go and say that it's understandable, they need it to pay overhead, etc., remember that Guild Wars had no monthly fee and many other large MMOs out there, developed by smaller or indie companies, don't require monthly fee either. They all have the option of buying in-game items, which many players will do, and I feel that Everquest and WoW should have gone this route as well. If they had, I might have considered trying them out. I just hope Diablo 3 will redeem Blizzard for pulling such a stunt as it had. (Yes, I know the original Warcraft games were RTS, but I really enjoyed them and I would like to see them make another in the same line rather than just keep expanding WoW.)

And again, FPS, I really don't mind. Bethesda's made great FPSRPG games in the Elder Scroll series. (I only wish I could have really seen Daggerfell and Arena, back in the old Dungeon Crawler style.) So I don't really know why others aren't going the same route. And I still say Final Fantasy has lost its quality after X. (Not X-2!)


And another thought here - The Lands of Lore series. The way I understood, it was supposed to be a series of eight games. Once EA got their hands on Westwood, they never got past number three. I enjoyed all three games immensely and I would have liked to see it completed, but I can see there is never going to be a Lands of Lore 4. It's things like that that make me a little angry at companies like EA.

 

[Ashcroft]

And as for the big push to MMOs...now I really don't mind MMOs. Honestly. Ironically enough, Ultima, one of my favorite game series (at least Ultimas 4-7SI), I found responsible for the big MMO burst. Some might say Everquest started it, but U:O was online before they were. The trouble is, when MMOs require a monthly fee to pay, like Everquest and WoW. Now before you go and say that it's understandable, they need it to pay overhead, etc., remember that Guild Wars had no monthly fee and many other large MMOs out there, developed by smaller or indie companies, don't require monthly fee either. They all have the option of buying in-game items, which many players will do, and I feel that Everquest and WoW should have gone this route as well. If they had, I might have considered trying them out.

May I suggest The Lord of the Rings Online? It's absolutely free: all of the game content that's available for purchase (bar certain cosmetics and essentially worthless stat boosts) can be earned just through playing the game. Landroval (US) and Laurelin (EU) servers are roleplay encouraged, and whilst a lot of players don't choose to RP on those servers, there's always RP to be found in the usual places (Prancing Pony in Bree, especially) and RP teams often form (I used to have a regular RP team).

 

[CyBeR]

May I suggest The Lord of the Rings Online? It's absolutely free: all of the game content that's available for purchase (bar certain cosmetics and essentially worthless stat boosts) can be earned just through playing the game. Landroval (US) and Laurelin (EU) servers are roleplay encouraged, and whilst a lot of players don't choose to RP on those servers, there's always RP to be found in the usual places (Prancing Pony in Bree, especially) and RP teams often form (I used to have a regular RP team).

Isn't LOTR:O free only up to level 65 or something like that?

 

[Quokka]

SEGA has had it's fair share of RPG success but tends to miss out on the kudos. I'm just finishing up Valkyria Chronicles and I love it. It's probably a bit of niche game but for anyone who enjoyed playing Archon as a kid this is an awesome game . It's actually a fair blend of two of their older rpg series, Shining Force and Shenmue.

They seem to really value a good storyline, in fact when I look back at their releases many of my favourite retro rpgs are Sega's, Phantasy Star 4 was another (way back in 93).

I'm hopeful that the increase of downloadable content will help more smaller companys find an audience. Some of them have already done well enough to move on to larger projects.

Of course that's balanced out by the fact that games seem to be getting released with more bugs now they know they can constantly release patches to fix what should have been sorted in development.

As for what started MMOs I remember playing a MUD for years before Ultima Online came out, though your right it was a big part of the boom in online games.

 

[Ashcroft]

Isn't LOTR:O free only up to level 65 or something like that?

Hm, not sure. I know people in game who've basically gotten all the way up to Moria (level 60 content) without paying a single penny. Here's a brief idea of how much free content that is: it took me two years to get to the Mines of Moria (playing about an hour or so a day), and I don't even prevent myself from out-levelling content!

It's a truly gigantic game, and it looks flippin' beautiful (plus the communities of the RP servers are great).

 

[Tecdavid]

I think some aspects of the RPG genre are on their way out simply due to changing times. Mistwalker studios is run by the man behind Final Fantasies 1-9, and two of the games they've released, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, were done in the precise same style as those timely Final Fantasies, and yet... they felt so horribly dated. I simply couldn't finish Lost Odyssey due to how slow its pace felt in contrast to today's games. In fact, I dare say I enjoyed FFXIII more, despite its over-linear style, simply because I gained at least a little enjoyment from mashing enemies so hastily. Lost Odyssey, on the other hand... It had everything my favourite FF titles had, but I just wasn't feeling it anymore.

 

[Snowdog]

I think the real problem is the huge advance in technology that is allowing games to come close to photo-realistic graphics. So much is focussed on providing the wow factor and instant gratification that gamers - especially younger gamers - expect, that other things, like depth and immersion, are given a lower priority or ignored entirely.

Games studios now spend millions to povide that wow factor, which basically bars smaller studios from competing in the same market.

Bethesda the shining star? They may be the best left, but the trend there isn't good either. Oblivion was a much simpler game than Morrowind, and already heading towards FPS-ville. It was only really saved by some great mods. Same for Fallout 3. I haven't played New Vegas but it sounds pretty much the same deal. We'll have to see whether Skyrim, once the initial gloss has worn off, has any real depth.

There will always be some niche products but I don't see a return to traditional RPGs, like the Wizardrys, Baldurs Gates and Might And Magics as major franchises. The market just isn't there.

OTOH, technology advances may end up giving us a game like Total Recall, that we actually participate in. That'll be way better

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

That's true about Bethesda's stuff, but Oblivion and the FNV still incorporated that RPG element. (Besides, some of the earliest classic RPGs were first-person dungeon crawlers, like the Lands of Lore series, the early D&D/Forgotten Realms series, and Eye of the Beholder.)


But yes, it seems that the RP element of RPGs has been going out for a long time now, since a lot of the young'uns don't seem t' have much in th' way o' imagination, don' ye know? But for me, graphics are never the sole major factor of a game for me. They usually aren't even any kind of major factor. Yes, I prefer the early FFs to the latest ones. (My favorite being X, though, but NOT X-2.)


And here's another issue I have-why did Final Fantasy stop allowing custom names? IX was the last one that allowed custom names for all the playable characters, and X was the last one to allow a custom name for even the main character. I don't get that. And the names that are inlaid for most of the characters in the later ones are just plain stupid as hell. I mean, come on. Hope for a male character?

And like in XII....Vaan? Penelo? What the hell?

 

[Tecdavid]

I would have thought the name issue rather obvious, Karn. Remember how none of X's characters actually spoke Tidus's name? Since you could rename him, there was no point in recording any dialogue which used his name, as it'd be meaningless to call him "Jake" when every character keeps calling him "Tidus" - Square couldn't record voices for everything a player decided to name him.
I felt it was awkward enough that the characters visibly tried to avoid using Tidus's name for this reason (It was as if they'd all forgotten, and were too embarrassed to ask what it was) but imagine if every character could have been renamed. The voiced dialogue would have been particularly bizarre. I think this is why they ditched the "name your character" feature for every voiced game since.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Yeah, but I really didn't mind the name drop. Preferred it to the favor of the custom name.


But that is just a small bonus I miss. And seriously, again, who comes up with names like Vaan? It's ugly to hear and uglier to look at. And as for Hope in FF XIII, wimpy though he is, I feel bad he has such a feminine name.


And going on for the name thing, Dragon Age. Have to follow a particular last name. *Shrugs* I suppose to cut down on potential CNA? (That would be Custom Name Abuse.)


Names aside, I still feel RPGs have, for the most part, fallen from grace, and landed with a hard slam.

 

[juelz4sure]

I dont know about actual companies but Lost Odysessy was one of the best rpgs ive played in years the story line is fantastic taking you on an emotional trip if you take the time to read the dream which are by the way fantastic. as a whole a great investment and if you like finding everything it takes a long time to beat.

 

[Overread]

I think part of the problem for the RPG games is that many of the big titles in the past were very strong single player games. Your big titles like Baldur's Gate were massive undertakings for a studio on the part of producing singleplayer content; RPGs are possibly the most involving in this aspect.

They can cheat and go the path that many RPGs from Japan take, which is to tell a story through predefined characters and plots where the player is mostly along for the ride, although might make a few key choices to either affect what parts of the story they see or even affect the very finale ending acts.
This cuts production time considerably as there is only one key story to build, but lacks the interactive aspects.

Or they take the Baldur's Gate approach - by having a very loose and open worldset with a large amount of player interactive content. This requires bit investments in time to produce and balance, esp if they want to have multiple options and suchlike.


However as games have gotten more graphically impressive that too adds a big pressure, especially for leading developers. They know that good graphics does sell, so here too is a big investment. And not just in scripting, but also building the worldset itself - in 2D old graphics a mountain might be 5 pixels high, but now its got to have caves and lighting and snow and a million and one other things added to it - time to make it goes up and up.



Anyway I think we might well see a darth of big proper RPG games from the big companies - they'll make pretty ones and some good fun ones, but I think it will be a long while before the market is stable enough for them to risk putting so much time into singleplayer - esp when simple multiplayer has shown to be soooo sooooo profitable (and lets remember gaming itself is about big investments early on for a product that has a very short shelf life and does not have huge market).

I think our big RPGs are more likely to come from the indy and smaller studios, ones which are a little more free on the time they have to develop and work within a niche market to start with and thus don't feel the same pressures to build a mass market appealing title.

You've already some such as Spiderweb studios with their Geneforge and Avadon games
http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/products.html
titles which are certainly not winning awards for pushing the limits of graphics, but which are held higher for their wider singleplayer content.

 

[Galacticdefender]

EA does not have horrible games. Mass Effect is an amazing RPG.

And Bethesda will always make awesome RPGs. Though I think it's time they started a new video game universe in which to set their RPG's. (Not to replace the others, I love ES and Fallout). I just think it would be cool to have maybe a space opera game in their style.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

EA does not have horrible games. Mass Effect is an amazing RPG.

And Bethesda will always make awesome RPGs. Though I think it's time they started a new video game universe in which to set their RPG's. (Not to replace the others, I love ES and Fallout). I just think it would be cool to have maybe a space opera game in their style.

I wasn't saying that EA didn't have good games. They do. What my problem is, is that they force their developers these days to rush most jobs in time for a Christmas season.


And yes, I do have to agree with you on Bethesda. They make excellent games, I found Skyrim to be vastly improved over Oblivion in terms of mechanics, and I would love to see a new universe from them. Not a space age game, I find those to be lame. Heh. But an entirely new fantasy setting would be awesome.


And on the Skyrim subject, I discovered one very open abuse of the level system-smithing. Especially if you're an archer. You go out and kill creatures like the mammoths, wolves, elk, anything that drops a hide, then you go to the starter town and can wind up smithing things like hundreds of leather bracers, within just a few hours you're up to level ten. That had a bigger leveling abuse to it than TES III and IV....

 

[Galacticdefender]

Have you ever played Mass Effect? If you consider yourself an RPG fan, I would definitely recommend it. Great story and great setting. Though if you don't like Scifi I don't know if you'd like it much.

 

[devilsgrin]

I wasn't saying that EA didn't have good games. They do. What my problem is, is that they force their developers these days to rush most jobs in time for a Christmas season.


And yes, I do have to agree with you on Bethesda. They make excellent games, I found Skyrim to be vastly improved over Oblivion in terms of mechanics, and I would love to see a new universe from them. Not a space age game, I find those to be lame. Heh. But an entirely new fantasy setting would be awesome.


And on the Skyrim subject, I discovered one very open abuse of the level system-smithing. Especially if you're an archer. You go out and kill creatures like the mammoths, wolves, elk, anything that drops a hide, then you go to the starter town and can wind up smithing things like hundreds of leather bracers, within just a few hours you're up to level ten. That had a bigger leveling abuse to it than TES III and IV....

lol, it might be levelling the character up... but its certainly not going to help him in combat at all. a level 10 whose smithing is really high is going to be crippled in combat. Archery is great (in fact better in this game than virtually any other), but it levels relatively slowly and in dungeons its hampered by short range.

Interesting that you want an entirely new fantasy setting using Sykrim's engine... when Tamriel is a world that exists solely for the Elder Scrolls, and is bound by none of the traditional rules of the genre (i mean Skyrim gives us elves as the most powerful race in the world... almost no others do that, they're usually all "faded glory" blahblahblah)

 

[thaddeus6th]

I wonder what they'll do when they run out of provinces. I think they're about halfway through.

I'd love to see an Elder Scrolls style game but set in Ancient Greece, with tons of mythology. Wouldn't it be cool to side with Sparta against Athens (or vice versa), learn philosophy from Socrates and battle the Nemean Lion?

I also think Quokka's post is spot on. Valkyria Chronicles is a bit unusual but very enjoyable, and anyway who cites Phantasy Star IV as a fantastic rpg has fine judgement. It's still one of my favourites and, thanks to the PS2 Sega compilation release, I got to play it again a few years ago. It still stands up. The battles are fun (plus I love the fact that when you travel in vehicles you have random encounters using the vehicle's weaponry) and the story and characters are great.