RPG devs adapt or die, here comes the MMORPG

"Besides in my opinion NWN2 is a huge improvement over the first NWN. I cannot stand the original NWN! Your party members were SO boring. The stories they had to tell were only good for unlocking side-quests (which were the typical "find-this-item-and-return" kind of quests) and rewards that helped only somewhat depending on your character. Also... a two-men party? WTF!"

Write you own module. For me, though, NWN2 was a huge disappointment. I wrote this elaborate plot, began basic coding, focusing on a HUGE story (would have been 20-30 hours long) telling about the epic rise and fall of a house in Drow society. Looking at screenshots, seeing Underdark races everywhere, only to buy NWN2 day one and realize that, although Underdark races are commonplace on the surface, the game creation modules had dick all worth of Underdark content. So I was stuck wanting to tool around and create an Underdark saga merely to have this sizable section of the D&D universe ignored.

Put my name in the single player RPGs please... Mass Effect, or to that end, any RPG that bioware does makes me buy consoles, first with KoToR and XBox, and now with the 360 (eventually)

I still play oblivion from time to time. Hell I have System Shock 2, Fallout 2, PLANESCAPE TORMENT, are some of the more notable single player RPGs on my system.

I've put a few years into EQ and EQ2, but damn if i'm not tired of throwing down $15 a MONTH to play em.

MMOs from a BUSINESS point of view are defiantly the wave of the future, but from a gaming point of view, nothing beats a RPG where you're the star and that badass rogue that just attacked your target is probably part of some "event" focused around you, or me, or whatever!

Hell I'd rather play Dungeon Runner for a couple hours (Free or $5/month) or Guild Wars, or Diablo 2 online if I have to play online. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy MMOs, but only if I have friends around to hang out with.

@46: "6. World-changing events (and I mean REAL world-changing events, like entire continents being destroyed.)"

Guild Wars has wonderful world changing events. I would almost not call Guild Wars an MMO.

ProtoJimmy -#22
I mean honestly, this has got to be a joke, what are those executives smoking?

Those executives are smoking cigars rolled out of $100 bills from the monthly fees people pay to play an MMO. Personally, I'd rather take an 80 grit orbital sander to my eyeballs than pay a reguired $10-$15 monthly fee on top of the cost of the game.

For that money I could buy a brand new game every 3-4 months and that is exactly what I do.

Way I see it is that I still pop in Diablo I/II or Fallout 1/2 as well as others and play through them atleast once a year and some of those titles I bought over ten years ago.

As long as there is one, solitary, single moron out there that thinks the monthly fee structure somehow delivers some sort of value that can't be done without paying a monthly fee, then there will be atleast one snake oil selling executive out there saying that games based on monthly fees are the way of the future.

Those of you who are knee-jerking and calling Feargus Urquhart an idiot need to go back and reread exactly what he's saying.

He's saying, in a nutshell, that thin-plotted, hack-and-slash gameplay doesn't cut it for single-player RPGs; you can get just as much similar content in an MMO, with the added (bonus/malus) of interacting with other players.

For a single-player RPG to stand out, it pretty much HAS to have an interesting storyline where the player feels he has an impact on the world - in other words, the single player has to excel in an area where the MMO's CAN'T.

I actually thought that Final Fantasy 11 was going to have storyline that changed the fundamental appearance of the world - for example, there's an area in Bastok where there's scaffolding and construction materials. I thought that there was going to be a quest at some point that would alter the city's appearance, "rebuilding" the city, and possibly opening up some shops that were previously inaccessible (not there, on the "pre-building" version of the map). Of course, I was disappointed on that; nothing along those lines ever happened.

Elder Scrolls 5= MMORPG that will kick WOW ass....oh and Yes I play both...Oblivion is a great game but feels realley lonley playing alone in a Huge world...WOW is the best MMO ....the end..as for Traditional RPGs they will never die, cause the Japanese will never die...hehe.

Hrmm let's see. In Final Fantasy games (excluding FF12 with all this mind you) I play whenever I want to, don't have mindless "loot" that sells, don't spend hours of choring crafting, experience deep storylines involving the world and the CHARACTERS (something that an MMO can't deliver so far), and when I beat a boss, I don't have to beat him over and over again once every week or so just to further my character. There are actually bosses after that first boss! Amazing. All that without having to listen to barrens chat. Pretty stupid criticisms. How about he look at his own industry for a change.

The reasons MMOs do well are:
1. Addicting
2. Graphical chatroom
3. Addicting
4. Updated content

They offer nothing to story to most people. Most players in WoW don't read any of the quest text, and only care about getting their stats up. It's just like the question whether the Achievements thing is so great because it's fun or something. People just get addicted to raising points in any form, and maximizing potential. Doesn't make the concept/game any better though. WoW is one of practically no successful MMO's. An MMO at best in the past would yield 500k subscribers. Sure that may seem like a lot, but when standalone RPG's top 5 million box sales regularly before they stop being sold. And that's just on one console, not even on multi-console releases, or handhelds, which sell better for other genres.

I think MMO's need the real change here. Give us some story. Phantasy Star Online and Final Fantasy XI attempted that, but it was still lame story that most people skip. Give us a real compelling character-based story, give us content that you only see once that is more astonishing than this grind content. God his definition of a single player sounded more like an MMO. He must be thinking of American-made single player RPGs like Oblivion or all the Diablo clones that keep getting made, because I just don't see the similarities with any Japanese RPGs and his descriptions.

I've played about 3 hours total of MMORPGs in my life. To me, it's like IRC with graphics. I'm not impressed. Doesn't intrigue me at all.

On the other hand, I've probably spent 100 times that amount just re-playing Final Fantasy 6 over the years.

I don't like competing with people that have no life or responsibilities. It doesn't make for a level playing field. Besides that, I've never had to worry about someone spamming me or hacking my account when I play alone on my console.

Or cheaters.

I'd take a decent Single Player RPG over an MMO anytime. Maybe its cos i'm antisocial, but I tend to get more control and more ability to change the plot and the world in a single player game. Plus the plot and characters are almost always better.

If obsidian wants to avoid extinction.... maybe they should avoid releasing half-complete messes like KoToR2!

(that was then, right?)

"Why play that game now if you could just play a MMO?"

Why play that MMO if you could play an actual game?

Bah. MMORPGs *don't* change the world around me. I heartily reccomend to play the age old Fallout Single player RPG to see what I mean.
For example: If I go to WoW or any other MMORPG i go to a guy with a Question Mark and he tells me "Kill 10 Wolves because [generic reason here]".

Then you kill 10 Wolves and a day later the wolves are back and the Question Mark is there too.

In Fallout, you go into a Village. Everything is peaceful. A farmer complains about his crop. So you can either help him (if you're intelligent enough) by telling him to plant different crops on his fiels each year, or you can shoot him. If you shoot him, the whole village will be pissed, and will attack you. If you return weeks later, the people will still attack you. If you kill the whole village, it will stay dead.

Furthermore, single player RPGs will have meaningful story-driven quests. You will be sent out to rescue something. There will be sidequests involved in this story, and sometimes you cancel the main goal altogether, because it was a trap or something.

This is not doable in a MMORPG. All quests I encounterend in a MMORPG are "Get [certain number] of [certain item] from [location or person] and bring it to [different location or person]".
And if you give a charakter a bad answer, don't worry. A few minutes later he'll reset and you can ask him for that shiny cool sword again after you kicked his balls 30 minutes earlier.

So learn from the old-school RPGs. Not that level-grinding rubbish.

I certainly hope there is a future for single player RPGs. If not, then the Role Playing Game genre is dead because MMOs do not deserve their final three letters. There is no roleplaying involved.

I hate MMOs because I hate the people who play MMOs. For every one person who tries to fully indulge himself in the story and the fantasy world, there are ten little kids who think its cool to use the "word" pwn.

Single player RPGs allow me to lose myself in an interactive fantasy world separate from the day to day doldrums of the work a day world. There is just something liberating about controlling a character whose actions will determine the future of the world. You can't find that in MMOs.

I agree that interactive worlds that change according to the player's actions make RPGs better, but the MMO format is just not for me. I don't like groups, Id on't like communicating with others, I like to play alone. Maybe that's why I never got that little gold star sticker for playing well with others.

Feargus is actually saying single-player RPGs are superior to MMOs, for those who can't be bothered to read. However, the issue is less that MMOs are inherently unable to deliver meaningful, story-driven experiences in which players have an effect on the world... it's just that few MMO developers have been willing to step up and make that happen. It's much easier to just emulate the same gameplay conventions that date back to Everquest and before! All the kids love grinding and looting and crafting and raiding, so let's give it to them! Given how much people bitch and moan anytime anyone fails to deliver on all of those things within 95% accuracy of all previous games, it's pretty clear that the hardcore MMO audience wants things to stay exactly as they are. But there are plenty of others who would love to play an MMO that feels much more like a single-player game, without resorting to making most of the game an instance.