@sciencestick Opps one sentence needs an edit: "really large RPG filled with fedex quests and combat that can be summed up as: [SAVE] WTF just happened?: [RESTORE] if someone died [CONTINUE] if not.
Tip to self don't use > or < to bracket words in the future
Fallout 3 decided they didn't want my money because it was a FPS instead of top down, Final Fantasy because I don't like overtly cute/Anime/JRPG's. Oh well.
Lots of decisions developers make define their consumer base. And in so doing eliminate some potential customers. Unfortunately a large amount, the bulk have chosen lowest common denominator in recent years. Making bloated light weight real time little thought required "quantity over qualty" RPG's and have redefined the genre towards players who "can't be bothered with" turn based (aka detailed in depth) combat systems.
Bioware pioneered this, with games that are IMO quantity over quality... (not popular opinion but I can't stand Baldurs gate and successors I tried to like them) really large RPG filled with fedex quests and combat that can be summed up as: WTF just happened: if someone died if not.
There was a time when a young gamer could appreciate a Chess match, the truth is if you're at all cerebral or detail minded you would probably quickly learn to love well executed turn based combat in games... if you're not you're never going to. It's not about generations, Chess is thousands of years old, there are still people who can relish a game with a friend over a beer or two, even with a PS3 sitting 10 feet away.
You can say the market is bigger for real time, but the sentiment here and I agree with it; is that turn based has been neglected so much in recent years that people who might like it are hard pressed to have even experienced it, Requiring a rare ability to play a game with retro graphics in "suspension of dislike" mode to even have gotten a taste of a great turn based system. You really have nothing to compare to. Newer gamers naturally associate that style with games that are older and out of date. They assume that it has been abandoned due to inferiority or technological advancements, when it's really about designers taking the "path of least resistance" and dumbing games down for a wider audience.
Fortunately we are entering an era of gaming where "niche" audiences can be catered to via things like Kickstarter and the Indie development explosion introducing (or reintroducing) great game design that has been "surpassed by technology" (AKA ignored due to the need to sell to a larger audience). Much like Hollywood pap movies versus Art films, Or Pop Music versus alternative music...
The shame is there's a whole generation of gamers out there who have never looked at the clock at 3AM and said "just one more turn" Some of you are missing out on some of the most compelling, absorbing, engrossing, gameplay ever devised. I'm sure many would see the intrisic value of deeper combat and Trun based could win over some new fans. There will always be the type who look down on what they don't understand (or don't like to think to hard about) and say "pffts if it's not real time I'm not playing it" let them go back to the pop music/Hollywood schlock movie equivelent games. They have and will always have plenty of games they can shovel through.
I can get behind EA they have always sucked in the eyes of hard core gamers.
Not sure I know what Walmart did to be on there? Ppl pissed because they only take refunds without a receipt for 30 days after x-mas? Don't like the low prices? Can't stand the fact that they don't close? I'm guessing that is more of a "you're not cool unless you hate it, like all the cool people do" kinda thing. Walmart is certainly not where I go for the finer things in life, but if you like having more of your hard earned money after you buy socks and underwear, a weeks worth of baby food, and an oil change for your car, etc. then you'd have to be an idiot to hate that place.
Anyone who voted for Walmart over SEARS of all places is a true moron... same TV at both places? $100-150 more at Sears. Sears makes best buy look like a bargain.
Menu and turn based RPG combat was designed that way because that way most resembled pen and paper combat... Menu driven = character sheets monster manuals/pages and dice. Turn based = miniatures.
In pen and paper D&D you usually only bothered with turn based movement and extended rules (like facing, zones of control, formations, weapon sizes, spell area of effect etc.) if you were using miniatures, placed on a grid (usually with colored strips of paper to push around to resemble walls in that particular area of the dungeon). So turn based combat in RPG's was directly 1 to 1 analogous with miniatures combat.
Menu driven is obviously faster, no movement or facing or "formations" etc. and is directly 1 to 1 analogous to how MOST combat was resolved in D&D and other pen and paper games. Usually because the extended rules for miniatures took too long and involved too much rules lawyering.
The styles have a lot more to do with pen and paper conventions than technology...
There's enough RTS brain dead click fest, lasso your guys and click the map "real time" games for fans of that to play... let people who loved to sit down with a snack and THINK ABOUT THE BEST MOVE/ACTION have some love.
Beer and pretzel turn based... AT LEAST Simultaneous turns with the action playing out (A la Combat Mission which was brilliant)
Yes I've diverged a tad, but there's enough beer and pretzles war gaming in turn based RPG's for the concepts to cross over.
X-com might be the single greatest PC game ever, it combined (not mashed together mind you, COMBINED) distinct elements of turn based, real time, spread sheet/Number crunching and yes EVEN MENU DRIVEN combat (the UFO shoot downs were menu driven combat) to make a whole game that was sweeping and truely compelling in every aspect... And the truth is it was nearly as much of an RPG as it was a tactical squad based combat game. The core of this game was seeing how choices and experience/level advancement played out in the DETAILS of turn based combat not "hope this works or I'll have to save/restore" of real time.
NES Ninja Gaiden.... possibly (easilly?) the most conspicuously non-remade/HD/Reloaded game out there.
IMO the best non-hop and bop platformer series ever... so hard... yet so making me come back and play it again. Have it on my android phone (w/ Nesoid emu) for instant retro gaming fixes
Never got into 3d platformers... PC FPS's filled that niche for me.
When are they going to make a 2d Ninja Gaiden Reloaded/HD? Ninja's are more fun when they are somersaulting, bouncing off walls, jumping over bottomless pits and sticking impossibly to vertical surfaces.
Seriously this is one of the most conspicuously non-revamped game series.
Sorry the narrative for this "history" is complete beeee-essss. I lived and played through this supposed "crash of 95" In reality it was more like "the slim pickings of the summer of 95"
But that's not nearly as dramatic. Not only where their releases in 95 (admitedly most of them crap like Skullkeep) their were lots of RPG's in 94. Darksun, Menzoberranzan (buggy) Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession, Realms of Arkania: Star Trail (a real meat and potatoes micro manager RPG which you could have spent most of 95 playing), many of them released late in the year.
The truth is that 95 (mostly the summer) was just a slow year. If anything 96 was worse, until Daggerfall and Diablo and then UO.
(Don't) Give me that old time RPG combat
Apr 4th 2012 9:46AM (Joystiq)Opps one sentence needs an edit:
"really large RPG filled with fedex quests and combat that can be summed up as: [SAVE] WTF just happened?: [RESTORE] if someone died [CONTINUE] if not.
Tip to self don't use > or < to bracket words in the future
(Don't) Give me that old time RPG combat
Apr 4th 2012 9:41AM (Joystiq)Fallout 3 decided they didn't want my money because it was a FPS instead of top down, Final Fantasy because I don't like overtly cute/Anime/JRPG's. Oh well.
Lots of decisions developers make define their consumer base. And in so doing eliminate some potential customers. Unfortunately a large amount, the bulk have chosen lowest common denominator in recent years. Making bloated light weight real time little thought required "quantity over qualty" RPG's and have redefined the genre towards players who "can't be bothered with" turn based (aka detailed in depth) combat systems.
Bioware pioneered this, with games that are IMO quantity over quality... (not popular opinion but I can't stand Baldurs gate and successors I tried to like them) really large RPG filled with fedex quests and combat that can be summed up as: WTF just happened: if someone died if not.
There was a time when a young gamer could appreciate a Chess match, the truth is if you're at all cerebral or detail minded you would probably quickly learn to love well executed turn based combat in games... if you're not you're never going to. It's not about generations, Chess is thousands of years old, there are still people who can relish a game with a friend over a beer or two, even with a PS3 sitting 10 feet away.
You can say the market is bigger for real time, but the sentiment here and I agree with it; is that turn based has been neglected so much in recent years that people who might like it are hard pressed to have even experienced it, Requiring a rare ability to play a game with retro graphics in "suspension of dislike" mode to even have gotten a taste of a great turn based system. You really have nothing to compare to. Newer gamers naturally associate that style with games that are older and out of date. They assume that it has been abandoned due to inferiority or technological advancements, when it's really about designers taking the "path of least resistance" and dumbing games down for a wider audience.
Fortunately we are entering an era of gaming where "niche" audiences can be catered to via things like Kickstarter and the Indie development explosion introducing (or reintroducing) great game design that has been "surpassed by technology" (AKA ignored due to the need to sell to a larger audience). Much like Hollywood pap movies versus Art films, Or Pop Music versus alternative music...
The shame is there's a whole generation of gamers out there who have never looked at the clock at 3AM and said "just one more turn" Some of you are missing out on some of the most compelling, absorbing, engrossing, gameplay ever devised. I'm sure many would see the intrisic value of deeper combat and Trun based could win over some new fans. There will always be the type who look down on what they don't understand (or don't like to think to hard about) and say "pffts if it's not real time I'm not playing it" let them go back to the pop music/Hollywood schlock movie equivelent games. They have and will always have plenty of games they can shovel through.
EA still in running for The Consumerist's Worst Company in America
Mar 31st 2012 9:39PM (Joystiq)Not sure I know what Walmart did to be on there? Ppl pissed because they only take refunds without a receipt for 30 days after x-mas? Don't like the low prices? Can't stand the fact that they don't close? I'm guessing that is more of a "you're not cool unless you hate it, like all the cool people do" kinda thing. Walmart is certainly not where I go for the finer things in life, but if you like having more of your hard earned money after you buy socks and underwear, a weeks worth of baby food, and an oil change for your car, etc. then you'd have to be an idiot to hate that place.
Anyone who voted for Walmart over SEARS of all places is a true moron... same TV at both places? $100-150 more at Sears. Sears makes best buy look like a bargain.
Notch's new space game is called ... Mars Effect?! [April Fools!]
Mar 31st 2012 4:22PM (Joystiq)Petition to name March 31st "Dorks who screw up april fools day" starts here:
1.Me
2.
3.
4.
etc.
(Don't) Give me that old time RPG combat
Mar 31st 2012 9:53AM (Joystiq)Menu and turn based RPG combat was designed that way because that way most resembled pen and paper combat... Menu driven = character sheets monster manuals/pages and dice. Turn based = miniatures.
In pen and paper D&D you usually only bothered with turn based movement and extended rules (like facing, zones of control, formations, weapon sizes, spell area of effect etc.) if you were using miniatures, placed on a grid (usually with colored strips of paper to push around to resemble walls in that particular area of the dungeon). So turn based combat in RPG's was directly 1 to 1 analogous with miniatures combat.
Menu driven is obviously faster, no movement or facing or "formations" etc. and is directly 1 to 1 analogous to how MOST combat was resolved in D&D and other pen and paper games. Usually because the extended rules for miniatures took too long and involved too much rules lawyering.
The styles have a lot more to do with pen and paper conventions than technology...
(Don't) Give me that old time RPG combat
Mar 31st 2012 9:12AM (Joystiq)^ Every effing sentence
There's enough RTS brain dead click fest, lasso your guys and click the map "real time" games for fans of that to play... let people who loved to sit down with a snack and THINK ABOUT THE BEST MOVE/ACTION have some love.
Beer and pretzel turn based... AT LEAST Simultaneous turns with the action playing out (A la Combat Mission which was brilliant)
Yes I've diverged a tad, but there's enough beer and pretzles war gaming in turn based RPG's for the concepts to cross over.
X-com might be the single greatest PC game ever, it combined (not mashed together mind you, COMBINED) distinct elements of turn based, real time, spread sheet/Number crunching and yes EVEN MENU DRIVEN combat (the UFO shoot downs were menu driven combat) to make a whole game that was sweeping and truely compelling in every aspect... And the truth is it was nearly as much of an RPG as it was a tactical squad based combat game. The core of this game was seeing how choices and experience/level advancement played out in the DETAILS of turn based combat not "hope this works or I'll have to save/restore" of real time.
Ninja Gaiden 3 review: To be blunt
Mar 27th 2012 9:53PM (Joystiq)IMO the best non-hop and bop platformer series ever... so hard... yet so making me come back and play it again. Have it on my android phone (w/ Nesoid emu) for instant retro gaming fixes
Never got into 3d platformers... PC FPS's filled that niche for me.
The Secret World dev diary details 'freeform progression'
Mar 25th 2012 10:23AM (Joystiq)Or wait maybe the author used Jazz negatively so maybe: Jazz-inducing?
Ninja Gaiden 3 getting free DLC weapons, multiplayer stages
Mar 17th 2012 9:00AM (Joystiq)Seriously this is one of the most conspicuously non-revamped game series.
The year role-playing games broke
Mar 17th 2012 12:18AM (Joystiq)But that's not nearly as dramatic. Not only where their releases in 95 (admitedly most of them crap like Skullkeep) their were lots of RPG's in 94. Darksun, Menzoberranzan (buggy) Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession, Realms of Arkania: Star Trail (a real meat and potatoes micro manager RPG which you could have spent most of 95 playing), many of them released late in the year.
The truth is that 95 (mostly the summer) was just a slow year. If anything 96 was worse, until Daggerfall and Diablo and then UO.