I agree with the character creation. I think Baldur's Gate 2 was the first real RPG I've played with so much choice. I would at times spend an hour going through all the different classes and kits, finding a name, etc. All that diversity was fun to pick through. An when I made a whole custom party, that just blew me away. I must've spent 6 hours creating the 6 characters! But with the new games, it's mostly "Fighter/Mage/Thief" and sometimes even less. Most of the current characters are created in less in 10 clicks... and to add insult to the injury, there's almost no differences between them anyway. Everyone can do everything so no one feels left out!
Does anyone else not find the constant harping against DA: Origins tiring?
sorry, not trying to hard, i loved da and it was an awesome story, but when it's said to be BG's successor, the char creation leaves a bit to be desired. You don't even have a true cleric, just a wizzy that can heal....ehh.
Does anyone else not find the constant harping against DA: Origins tiring?
sorry, not trying to hard, i loved da and it was an awesome story, but when it's said to be BG's successor, the char creation leaves a bit to be desired.
This is consistent with what I've observed so far, @Bjjorick: AFAIK, there's two kinds of people here: those who regard DA:O as a worthy successor and those who don't.
The first camp seems to be comprised by those who favor story choice. DA:O has more dialogue based story choice/consequence than BG did. And though the Origin stories only literally shape the first 5 or so hours of the game, they did offer different perspectives that greatly change the story. Depending on who you are (and how you play it), one of the main villain's lackey's death becomes the end of a story of vengeance on your parent's murderer.
To the first camp, let's call them the narrativists, game mechanics and rules need not be as well developed as they were in Baldur's Gate. They rely heavily upon the character defining choices in dialogue and similar milieus, so if the combat is Real-Time with Pause, then its a-ok to them.
To the second camp, let's call them the gamists, the rules and mechanics of BioWare's homebrew pale in comparison by the sheer amount of choice presented by 2nd ed. Even so if you consider that BG cannot implement every rule and every choice the system allows. The wider amount of class/race choices in Baldur's Gate does allow for a wider storytelling, even if that variance is mostly contained to combat.
Dragon Age 2 could have improved the rules by expanding your choices and I don't mean necessarily more classes at character creation, but simply more varied choices at character development. Improving and expanding the non-combat skills would go far, but then they axed it. Fleshing out the optional weapon styles for melee character too, but then they axed that too.
Does anyone else not find the constant harping against DA: Origins tiring?
I do. I don't understand the problem with only 3 races and classes, especially when you have specializations and 6 different background stories which have significant effect on the plot.
@Aliteri I guess it didn't help that i was crazy addicted to BG when i found DA:O, huh? it's not so much as the lack of starting races, that part was fine, but as far as classes, i don't feel comfortable without a dedicated healer. When me and my wife play games, she always plays healer, just because she knows that i enjoy having a healer around. I know potions took that role in DA and that was the intent but i'm the type that i prefer not to use potions. Lol, i'm odd.
and skills, they weren't quite as bad as the fact that everything had a pretty large stamina drain that never fully made sense to me. I never played dnd 3rd e, so maybe that's why. Maybe i didn't give it a fair chance, and while some of the combined abilities were cool, they seemed a bit cheap and made the game easy. But don't get me wrong, i loved DA:O, great story, great visuals, gaming is finally getting to the point where different armor looks different (bg kinda did this, da:o did a good job of it, DQIX went a bit overboard, it was good but there wasn't much real armor). So i do love the game and still play it alot, but not as much as BG.
And nowhere near as much as fallout. (btw, fallout 3 was much worse then fallout 1/2, i only have minor complains about DA:O)
Now I know I'm getting old, 'cause I'm saying things were better back in the day.
To me, choosing between 'new' and 'old' RPGs is basically choosing between breadth of story versus depth of story. BG offers a tremendous range in story choices, but most of these are irrelevant outside of combat. In Dragon Age, there are fewer choices - less classes, races and party members - but each choice was richly detailed.
The biggest strength of D&D, and its adaptations, will always be breadth of choice. After all, the game was designed to be played inside your head.
@MilesBeyond I had a lot of fun with BG character creation, but that was a consequence of having a sophisticated rules system under the hood. I loved it precisely because it wasn't dumbed down accessible. The simpler the rules system, the less interested I am. Most devs these days want us hard core gamers to piss off because the big population, hence the big money, is in the console kiddies.
Similarly, the top down or 3/4 isometric view allowed for more strategic combat. Yup, the toons are smaller, and you can't see their shiny armor and swords. Fine by me cuz I want to place the fireball precisely, deploy archers... Yes I miss turn based combat or BG's spacebar pause or tabletop games, because they allowed for thinking.
The games offered in recent years suggest that young gamers care more about rapidly paced and first-person, high res, body part explosions. Action RPGs, like Diablo - not chess, became the in thing to do. Devs stopped making games for me, cuz they were busy chasing a different audience.
Now comes a generation of gamers is in their 20's and 30's, looking for some satisfying depth in their games. Maybe plot consequence, deep dialogue trees and so on is on the rebound. Maybe kickstarter and hardcore gamers is a match made in heaven.
Thankx for mentioning Daggerfall. So many bugs in that game, that I had to termite tent the house. But it sure delivered the gaming goodness. If you wish to play something today, Morrowind did the Daggerfall thing better, and has ton of mods.
Played DragonAge. I've played most RPGs. It wasn't memorable.
Torment was memorable. Great story. Didn't care that you play a pre-made toon. It starts off so bad - amnesia cliche - keeps getting better and better.
The Fallout games were OK - I am just not a fan of the post apocalyptic settings because I find them inherently depressing. I prefer attractive worlds to recreate in. It's like these games expect me to have fun watching Schindler's List. When you get to a subway you can forget that and run a dungeon.
IWD was just hackNslash. Good Infinity Engine hacking, but no story at all.
New rpg are too simple is no good, player no need learn, old rpg game determine player to thinking, choosing different tactics. Like old school rpg harder, better and giving more fun and satisfaction.
one thing i loved about fallout 1 is that it was hard. it was open and you didn't have to ever fire a gun/attack anyone. But you got put outside the vault with no info, a quest with a time limit to complete it (and i typically hate time limits) and ways to extend it but only one i can think of. And it was hard. Unlike fallout 3, radiation was a bad think and would kill you. Super mutants were bad things and would kill you. easily. ghouls would kill you, rad scorpions would kill you, death claws would kill you.....
It wasn't a perfect game. But i felt like i was in the wasteland, not my char, but me. What am i going to do. And if i could think of it, it was possible. I have never felt so free in a game, and i never felt fear like when i came across a new enemy. Would it kill me? almost certain. Roll to see how gruelsome of a death.
Early game i aimed for the crotch, because i was a teenager and found it funny. I also realized that it would knock them over on a crit. Then my aim got better and i aimed for the eyes. Then i got stronger and started to have fun and would disable arms or legs. I was alone, if i was hurt, i had to have doc skills to heal my broken body, and medic skill to cure my tiny hp. I had to have science, speech, wilderness/survival. I had to learn to be a one many army, to survive despite terrorible odds, because so many were counting on me.
I was so happy when i found the water chip. I thought it was the end of the game. Then i found out what awaited me. And after it was all said and done, weary, beaten, and barely grasping victory, i was betrayed. But i had become strong and i would survive. My bleached bones WOULD NOT lay in the wasteland as a warning to others. I had won this war, and would be prepared for the next.
Think about it. Name an RPG where the plot was simply "save the country side." They are a dime a dozen and most of them end up feeling very dry.
Baldur's Gate Saga and PlaneScape: Torment both did something very well. They crafted a narrative that was personal to your character. Yeah, you save the countryside in Baldur's Gate but you aren't doing it out of the goodliness of your heart. It's because in order to save yourself, it's just a by-product. It's all about YOU.
Dragon Age: Origins did a pretty good job of this. Sadly DA2 was actually a step backwards despite having what should have set up as a more personal plot. It's also why both of the new-age Fallout games felt so flat. After you get out of Vault 101 and after you find Mr. House, it just feels like you could be anybody. It's why Mass Effect 2 was the most compelling of that series. It's why Final Fantasy 6 has the best plot of any FF game.
I feel the same way. That's why DA2 never really appealed to me that much. Your character wasn't really central to the story. He was more of an interested bystander that happened to be standing around when crap when down. Also, Hawke never really made a lasting mark on the world. He (or she as the case may be) just sorta slinked off into the hills never to be heard from again.
@arabus13 I always got the impression that DA2's story was mostly a lead-up to the mage-templar war, centered on giving more details about the factions present, not focusing on a specific story arc or character. The characters didn't matter that much, although DA2's characters are it's strongest point ( I liked them more than the cast of DA:O). I think some parts of the story were driven by the party as a whole, not just by Hawke, like the invasion where Aveline and Isabella play a central part but Hawke is the one who ends the invasion (possibly with a duel). The cancelled expansion pack to DA2 would have also centered on Hawke, so that's the reason he disappeared at the end of the game. DA2 could have made the game more personal by adding more options. When I first played DA2 I was playing a pro-mage anti-chantry character but there were instances where some logical options for my character to take were not present, or were completely irrelevant.
@arabus13 I always got the impression that DA2's story was mostly a lead-up to the mage-templar war, centered on giving more details about the factions present, not focusing on a specific story arc or character. The characters didn't matter that much, although DA2's characters are it's strongest point ( I liked them more than the cast of DA:O). I think some parts of the story were driven by the party as a whole, not just by Hawke, like the invasion where Aveline and Isabella play a central part but Hawke is the one who ends the invasion (possibly with a duel). The cancelled expansion pack to DA2 would have also centered on Hawke, so that's the reason he disappeared at the end of the game. DA2 could have made the game more personal by adding more options. When I first played DA2 I was playing a pro-mage anti-chantry character but there were instances where some logical options for my character to take were not present, or were completely irrelevant.
A good point. I agree that DA2's characters were pretty strong. I think you sum up nicely (right at the end of your post) how my (Hawke's) actions and decisions had no real impact on the outcome. He was "completely irrelevant"! After finishing DA2 I found myself asking, "Ummm...soo...what did I accomplish?" If I had to sum up DA2 in one sentence, it would be, "He died, she died, everybody died"!
@Aliteri, great post. I agree completely. I probably do fall into the first camp although I'm not sure if I would say that DA:O is a worthy successor or not because games can be great on their own without needing to be compared to BG.
Three races (each with two backgrounds, so, realistically, something closer to 6 races), each of which provides a fair amount of "actual" difference to your game experience (at least compared to the race difference in BG).
Three classes each of which possesses a fairly reasonable number of abilities (I'm actually blanking on tree size at the moment, its been a little while) that drastically alter the playstyle of the class (at least so far enough that they deserve to be noted, given you are crediting Kits). These are, in turn, further differentiated by 4 specializations per class.
The variety in Dragon Age is a LOT broader then you are pretending it is. Remember, just because the game broadly divides into the three major archetypes doesn't mean that there are only three "classes."
But as others have pointed out, the skills, in my opinion, don't really alter the class all that much. What's larger, the difference between a Fighter and a Paladin in BG, or the difference between a Dual-Wield specialist and Two-Handed specialist in DA? A subject for debate, I suppose. I do like the addition of fighter abilities, but those are more than offset by the incredibly paltry mage tree - which is made even worse by its seeming repetition (the four different elemental schools seem to be largely all the same spells - a buff, a single-target damage spell, a cone spell, and an AoE spell. There's a bit of diversity, but not much).
I never found the races provided that much of a difference, either. Both BG and DA had that thing where really the only difference your race made in conversation was that someone would occasionally mention it. Outside of dialogue/story, BG has the clear edge in terms of distinctions between races.
DA does have its origin stories, which are fun. Unfortunately, they don't really impact 95% of the game. They determine your first hour or so, and then they might come into play again towards the end of the game. The Human Noble origin probably has the most impact. The others mostly seem to lead to a couple of "Hey, don't I know you?" moments later on and that's about it.
Still, it's a lot more than BG offered, so I'll concede the point on that count. Also, you're right that the specs are analogous to BG's kits, and it was unfair of me to mention one without the other.
Ironically, a lot of what made me dislike DA:O's options for characters (or lack thereof) was DA 2. In DA:O I was prepared to accept the more limited options because, as others have mentioned, BG was running under a well-tuned engine. DA was starting from scratch. Of course a new system in a new world isn't going to have quite as many choices. But when DA 2 gave even LESS choices, it seemed to me that it was less of a "Man, creating our own stuff is hard!" and more of "Ah, screw it."
Dragon Age 2 was, really, a step backwards in almost every conceivable way. Like I said, the plot of DA:O was absolutely terrible, so much so that I was confident that it couldn't get any worse.
I've linked this: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=195 in these forums before, but I'll do so again because its probably the best review on DA:O I've seen - even though I, personally, would have been a little bit harsher. It praises what theoretically satisfies the 'narrativist' camp (as per my post above) and is harsh towards what disatisfies the 'gamist' camp.
I can't do it in a nicer way so lemme shout the truth: you're being arrogant @MilesBeyond. As an old school player, i can say that there's no regression in the new RPGs.
Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, all those games where create in an defined and already solid system, the D&D system. BG style isn't bound to the time of it's development, but to strict rules.
While i truly like the replay interest existing in games like Baldur's Gate and IWD, i can't reject the other way of make RPGs. Take games like Chrono Thrigger, Final Fantasy III (VI in playstation), legend of mana, Zelda - a link to the past, terranigma (one of the best) among others, they're all old games with singlee fowarded storylines, yet they're awersome in their own way.
When i saw your comments about Dragon Age: Origins, i must say i took some offense. It's a wonderfull game that broke years of hungry for a good RPG game to many players. Each of those new games brought with them some new awersome features.
Dragon Age: Origins background choice based on race, made a entire diferent epilogue for each race of the game, the kind of coherence that brought for the game is unmeasurable. foward on i see this as a feature that any good RPG game in that style should follow.
Dragon Age 2, while not my favorite game, made an interesting feature, it slice the timeline of the game in many parts and linked them, so based on what you do in the first part of the game, some quests are avaliable to you and others are not. This raise the replay interest a lot for me.
Mass Effect series made the same feature but more focused between the game itself, what an imported mass effect character did on the first game, would have serious repercutions in Mass Effect 2, and the same in Mass Effect 3.
So, to end this post, i think that in their each way, each of the games i listed here put their name on history, on their own way. The lesson isn't from old games for new games, but from history to everyone, as we should take the better of each game ever done to increase the quality of new games. Be bound to the past isn't anything else but stagnation.
Ps: An D&D game, with character development based on infinite engine/aurora engine D&D games (BG, IWD, NWN, PS:T...), with the background feature from DA:O, the consequence repercution existing in DA2 and ME series, the the unpredictability consequence of acts existing in The Wicher, and engaging stories as Final Fantasy III, VII, Chrono Thrigger... that would be an heaven's sight, for me at least .
Personally I loved Dragon Age: Origins (haven't played its sequel yet). Personally I believe its dialogue choices are both superior and inferior to those seen in BG/IWD/PS:T/Fallout etc. How so? Here's how:
So BG has, in my opinion, more realistic dialogue choices. What I mean is that in new RPGs you often find you only have two options... good or evil. Should I be saintly or demonic? That's it. Hell you might get lucky and get a third, more neutral choice but that's about it.
Personally I don't like this. I don't believe in good or evil. I hear people say "I'm going to play an evil mage". I think... "what does that mean". When I play I say "I'm going to play a rogue wanting to clean up the streets and to do so he will even become the very thing he hates
Older RPGs have more dialogue choices and more realistics dialogue choices. There isn't just the good and evil choice. You can be the asshole, the mercenary, the sadist, the saint, the false hope, the nonchalant. In Fallout 2 I played as a female character and decided that I would be quite... erm... "giving" with myself so to speak. My character was weak... so very weak but she was intelligent and charismatic. She would use her feminine charms and even her body as a commodity to get what she wanted. I haven't seen this kind of gameplay allowed in any newer RPG. It made things very interesting especially when I would run across another female character... I was always at quite the disadvantage with them.
Another thing that I always always always think about when I wonder what are some things that older RPGs have over newer ones is that your companions can die. In BG/IWD/PS:T/Fallout a companion can die. But it's ok... they can (most of the time) be brought back to life (in Fallout... they can't). In new RPGs they just get "knocked unconscious".
Take Fallout for example. I played it rather recently, a few years ago. I was using a mod to allow me to have as many companions as I liked. It made it quite fun. I recruited everybody I could. A few people died for me... killed by raiders, mutants and god knows what else. I remember the final boss in Fallout 1. I had six or so in my party when I confronted him. But every turn that went by one of them died. By the time I finally managed to kill him it was only me left. I can't explain how it feels to know that you walked with five friends and you leave alone.
Another thing is that in newer RPGs you often HAVE to meet the companions. In BG there were no compulsory companions. Imoen was the only one... and that is debatable as well I guess. Even Khalid and Jaheira... you can just give them the finger and tell them you don't need their help. Probably not the smartest thing to do but by damn could it make things interesting.
Now how are DA choices superior? Well I personally believe that newer RPGs' dialogue choices have longer reaching consequences. In BG you make a choice and it has an immediate effect. Maybe you will even face the consequences of your choice later in that chapter but that's as far as it goes. In DA you can make a choice that has an immediate effect but also one that appears much later in the game (or even in a sequel game).
I think most, if not all, choices should give you a good idea with what might happen when you make them. If they're going pull off some "clever" twist you didn't see coming, you might as well have chosen at random. An example of consequences done well would be (or should have been), saving the Rachnii Queen in Mass Effect. Even if doing the "right" thing and showing mercy turned out to only to have her be lying and really evil, that's a risk you knew from the start. What I don't like is something like saving a baby from a burning building only to have it grow up to be the next Hitler. They should leave that sort of thing to The Twilight Zone.
@lmaoboat, you're mistake about that, killing or not the Rachni queen in Mass Effect always lead to side missions in 2 systems where you need to kill some rogue rachnis, cos they already lost their minds.
In Mass Effect 2 you get a special banter with an asari in Illium.
In Mass Effect 3 the true consequence of release or not the Rachni queen appear, i will not spoil it too much for you but she does not break her word if you have spared her, this is the only spoil i will offer.
About your last comment i didn't get why a history where a baby saved become a monstruous person is something twilighted. You understand that could be exactly BG history, no? In BG2 ToB, you discover that you mother was a priest of Bhaal, that tried to sacrifice you when you where a baby, alongside other bhaalspawns. Gorion interfered with the sacrifice cerimony and killed your mother and the other priests, freeing the childrens and choosing you and Imoen as his ward. If you become evil later, you will be exactly a hitler that was saved when a baby.
Has anyone played Dragon's Dogma? Say what you will about any other aspect of that game, but it has one of the funnest character creators ever. I downloaded the demo on xbox and spent many hours making different characters.
@lmaoboat, you're mistake about that, killing or not the Rachni queen in Mass Effect always lead to side missions in 2 systems where you need to kill some rogue rachnis, cos they already lost their minds.
In Mass Effect 2 you get a special banter with an asari in Illium.
In Mass Effect 3 the true consequence of release or not the Rachni queen appear, i will not spoil it too much for you but she does not break her word if you have spared her, this is the only spoil i will offer.
About your last comment i didn't get why a history where a baby saved become a monstruous person is something twilighted. You understand that could be exactly BG history, no? In BG2 ToB, you discover that you mother was a priest of Bhaal, that tried to sacrifice you when you where a baby, alongside other bhaalspawns. Gorion interfered with the sacrifice cerimony and killed your mother and the other priests, freeing the childrens and choosing you and Imoen as his ward. If you become evil later, you will be exactly a hitler that was saved when a baby.
That's why I said what "should have" happened. The choice ended up not mattering much, but in theory it was still a good one because because you know you're taking a risk. You seem to have missed the point with the Hitler Baby analogy. While it's something that could conceivably happen, I still think it's a cheap twist that doesn't serve anything other than to go, "Lol, gottcha!"
Has anyone here played Alpha Protocol? It seemed like most of the choices in the game had an immediate impact but also had a greater impact later on the story(there were a lot of choices).
"When we started development of the Realms of Arkania games in 1989, it was our goal to duplicate the experience of a pen&paper roleplaying session as best as we could. While we may have gone overboard in terms of detail and overwhelmed players with depth in the process, the games offered unsurpassed flexibility in many ways. It is the reason why they are still so popular today and have fan communities dedicated to and re-playing them even 25 years after their release. But make no mistake, even those games were severely hampered.
In today’s world, technology is no longer truly a limiting factor, and yet, computer roleplaying games have moved farther away from their pen&paper origins than ever. Perhaps it is time for the CRPG genre to re-examine itself—a necessary step if we want to take the computer roleplaying genre to its next evolutionary rung.
Virtually all triple-A computer roleplaying games have been reduced to a very simple formula. You run around, you fight opponents, you talk to friendly NPCs and you follow fairly static quest lines. In most cases, the player will feel fairly detached from the actual experience because the in-game auto pilot makes sure you never have to invest any of your own thinking prowess or imagination, or read a single line of dialogue for that matter—though you will have to click mindlessly through them. You’ll never get lost either because the mapping features will always let you find your way from quest point A to point B without deviation, and if you are lucky, once in a blue moon, you may actually be allowed to make a decision that has some sort of consequence. Puzzles are exceedingly rare and when you stumble across them, typically at the end of a dungeon, they have the solution already built-in or are of a rather mundane arranging or do-something-in-the-correct-order kind of sort. Anything, really, to make sure the player never gets stuck or even held up for more than a few seconds.
Real roleplaying is about choices
Not that this isn’t fun, but a real roleplaying game is a much different affair than that. What we are looking at here is a mere skeleton of the original genre, boiled down to its bare essentials, and then some. Alternative solutions to problems and paths are usually not available.
But what if you don’t wish to fight an opponent? Why should you feel a need to attack every single breathing being in the wilderness, just because they appear unfriendly? What if you want to barter with a troll instead of gutting him with a spectacular finishing move? What if you’d rather charm your way out of a situation? What if you would prefer to sneak up to and steal any quest artifact without having to kill the enemy? Very few games will offer you any of these options unless they are specifically part of the desired solution path.
<...>
It has been almost 20 years since Baldur’s Gate steered the RPG genre away from the abyss of oblivion and took it to a more mainstream audience. It has been almost equally long since Everquest popularized true open-world design in the genre. However, in the long years since, the design of computer roleplaying games has evolved very little. The visuals may be more dazzling, the storylines ever more complex, and the worlds ever larger, waiting to be explored with their rich tapestry of flora, fauna, and denizenry but at the core what they have always been truly missing is a beating heart."
Just read the whole article, it's a wonderful piece.
Planescape torment got umm... One choice but I could make differences and later change professions. One o my favorite is ultima underworld which features character creation process consists of choose 3 main atats, 7 classes and about 14 skills to combine at your service. But human is the only race you can choose hehe. But...... Yeah you got the point, RPG protagonist is supposed to be "you".
Just read the whole article, it's a wonderful piece.
95% of that are my own thoughts as well. One thing he didn't touch upon, and which I think had contributed greatly to the problem we have now, is that the focus has shifted from gameplay to narrative. If I wanted good story with graphics, I'd play visual novel or watch a movie.
You can still have a decent plot without excessive railroading. BG1 proved that. And if the story doesn't grip, I don't feel inclined to continue - something that is true of PnP as well. But I do think the current emphasis on relationships with party members is going way over the top.
But there is too much dependence on combat as the only challenge. If you select "increase the difficulty" the only thing that changes is the combat.
Linking back to the original post, it is excessive hand holding that has neutered the fun of character creation. Designers are so afraid of a player creating a "bad" character that they remove all meaningful choices.
To me, there's one very important aspect of RPGs that many newer ones (especially coming from Bioware) seem to have overlooked, and that is this:
When it comes to RPGs, character creation is half the fun.
Think about it. The one thing that's really appealing for RPGs, for myself, and for what seems to be a large amount of other players, is the fact that you can do a thousand different playthroughs, having an entirely different experience every time, from different races, classes, and alignments.
I remember I used to get through 12-hour shifts at work by thinking of the different party combinations I could make in IWD or Might and Magic VII. In Baldur's Gate 2, you've got seven different races to choose from and 11 classes, 7 of which have three kits each.
Dragon Age? Uh, three races, three classes.
Sounds like more a personal problem than a RPG problem to me. I care more how the game actually plays than creating my character because personally if I wanted to spend 12 hours on character appearances and parties, I'd draw and paint them myself. I want to write a deep intricate back story? I'd rather do it for my own creations.
I'd happily sacrifice costumization for an intricate story and game play, yes bg had 11 classes and majority played the same with a little frosting here and there to try and make them feel different. Those classes became even less when people started powergaming because then people just repeated the same classes over and over.
Comments
The first camp seems to be comprised by those who favor story choice. DA:O has more dialogue based story choice/consequence than BG did. And though the Origin stories only literally shape the first 5 or so hours of the game, they did offer different perspectives that greatly change the story. Depending on who you are (and how you play it), one of the main villain's lackey's death becomes the end of a story of vengeance on your parent's murderer.
To the first camp, let's call them the narrativists, game mechanics and rules need not be as well developed as they were in Baldur's Gate. They rely heavily upon the character defining choices in dialogue and similar milieus, so if the combat is Real-Time with Pause, then its a-ok to them.
To the second camp, let's call them the gamists, the rules and mechanics of BioWare's homebrew pale in comparison by the sheer amount of choice presented by 2nd ed. Even so if you consider that BG cannot implement every rule and every choice the system allows. The wider amount of class/race choices in Baldur's Gate does allow for a wider storytelling, even if that variance is mostly contained to combat.
Dragon Age 2 could have improved the rules by expanding your choices and I don't mean necessarily more classes at character creation, but simply more varied choices at character development. Improving and expanding the non-combat skills would go far, but then they axed it. Fleshing out the optional weapon styles for melee character too, but then they axed that too.
and skills, they weren't quite as bad as the fact that everything had a pretty large stamina drain that never fully made sense to me. I never played dnd 3rd e, so maybe that's why. Maybe i didn't give it a fair chance, and while some of the combined abilities were cool, they seemed a bit cheap and made the game easy. But don't get me wrong, i loved DA:O, great story, great visuals, gaming is finally getting to the point where different armor looks different (bg kinda did this, da:o did a good job of it, DQIX went a bit overboard, it was good but there wasn't much real armor). So i do love the game and still play it alot, but not as much as BG.
And nowhere near as much as fallout.
To me, choosing between 'new' and 'old' RPGs is basically choosing between breadth of story versus depth of story. BG offers a tremendous range in story choices, but most of these are irrelevant outside of combat. In Dragon Age, there are fewer choices - less classes, races and party members - but each choice was richly detailed.
The biggest strength of D&D, and its adaptations, will always be breadth of choice. After all, the game was designed to be played inside your head.
Similarly, the top down or 3/4 isometric view allowed for more strategic combat. Yup, the toons are smaller, and you can't see their shiny armor and swords. Fine by me cuz I want to place the fireball precisely, deploy archers... Yes I miss turn based combat or BG's spacebar pause or tabletop games, because they allowed for thinking.
The games offered in recent years suggest that young gamers care more about rapidly paced and first-person, high res, body part explosions. Action RPGs, like Diablo - not chess, became the in thing to do. Devs stopped making games for me, cuz they were busy chasing a different audience.
Now comes a generation of gamers is in their 20's and 30's, looking for some satisfying depth in their games. Maybe plot consequence, deep dialogue trees and so on is on the rebound. Maybe kickstarter and hardcore gamers is a match made in heaven.
Thankx for mentioning Daggerfall. So many bugs in that game, that I had to termite tent the house. But it sure delivered the gaming goodness. If you wish to play something today, Morrowind did the Daggerfall thing better, and has ton of mods.
Played DragonAge. I've played most RPGs. It wasn't memorable.
Torment was memorable. Great story. Didn't care that you play a pre-made toon. It starts off so bad - amnesia cliche - keeps getting better and better.
The Fallout games were OK - I am just not a fan of the post apocalyptic settings because I find them inherently depressing. I prefer attractive worlds to recreate in. It's like these games expect me to have fun watching Schindler's List. When you get to a subway you can forget that and run a dungeon.
IWD was just hackNslash. Good Infinity Engine hacking, but no story at all.
It wasn't a perfect game. But i felt like i was in the wasteland, not my char, but me. What am i going to do. And if i could think of it, it was possible. I have never felt so free in a game, and i never felt fear like when i came across a new enemy. Would it kill me? almost certain. Roll to see how gruelsome of a death.
Early game i aimed for the crotch, because i was a teenager and found it funny. I also realized that it would knock them over on a crit. Then my aim got better and i aimed for the eyes. Then i got stronger and started to have fun and would disable arms or legs. I was alone, if i was hurt, i had to have doc skills to heal my broken body, and medic skill to cure my tiny hp. I had to have science, speech, wilderness/survival. I had to learn to be a one many army, to survive despite terrorible odds, because so many were counting on me.
I was so happy when i found the water chip. I thought it was the end of the game. Then i found out what awaited me. And after it was all said and done, weary, beaten, and barely grasping victory, i was betrayed. But i had become strong and i would survive. My bleached bones WOULD NOT lay in the wasteland as a warning to others. I had won this war, and would be prepared for the next.
But war......war never changes.....
Favorite of all time.
DA2 could have made the game more personal by adding more options. When I first played DA2 I was playing a pro-mage anti-chantry character but there were instances where some logical options for my character to take were not present, or were completely irrelevant.
But as others have pointed out, the skills, in my opinion, don't really alter the class all that much. What's larger, the difference between a Fighter and a Paladin in BG, or the difference between a Dual-Wield specialist and Two-Handed specialist in DA? A subject for debate, I suppose. I do like the addition of fighter abilities, but those are more than offset by the incredibly paltry mage tree - which is made even worse by its seeming repetition (the four different elemental schools seem to be largely all the same spells - a buff, a single-target damage spell, a cone spell, and an AoE spell. There's a bit of diversity, but not much).
I never found the races provided that much of a difference, either. Both BG and DA had that thing where really the only difference your race made in conversation was that someone would occasionally mention it. Outside of dialogue/story, BG has the clear edge in terms of distinctions between races.
DA does have its origin stories, which are fun. Unfortunately, they don't really impact 95% of the game. They determine your first hour or so, and then they might come into play again towards the end of the game. The Human Noble origin probably has the most impact. The others mostly seem to lead to a couple of "Hey, don't I know you?" moments later on and that's about it.
Still, it's a lot more than BG offered, so I'll concede the point on that count. Also, you're right that the specs are analogous to BG's kits, and it was unfair of me to mention one without the other.
Ironically, a lot of what made me dislike DA:O's options for characters (or lack thereof) was DA 2. In DA:O I was prepared to accept the more limited options because, as others have mentioned, BG was running under a well-tuned engine. DA was starting from scratch. Of course a new system in a new world isn't going to have quite as many choices. But when DA 2 gave even LESS choices, it seemed to me that it was less of a "Man, creating our own stuff is hard!" and more of "Ah, screw it."
Dragon Age 2 was, really, a step backwards in almost every conceivable way. Like I said, the plot of DA:O was absolutely terrible, so much so that I was confident that it couldn't get any worse.
I was wrong.
Edit: @neokarny
Wisely said, but its not us, gamers, who compare DA:O to BG, its BioWare's marketing itself.
Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, all those games where create in an defined and already solid system, the D&D system. BG style isn't bound to the time of it's development, but to strict rules.
While i truly like the replay interest existing in games like Baldur's Gate and IWD, i can't reject the other way of make RPGs. Take games like Chrono Thrigger, Final Fantasy III (VI in playstation), legend of mana, Zelda - a link to the past, terranigma (one of the best) among others, they're all old games with singlee fowarded storylines, yet they're awersome in their own way.
When i saw your comments about Dragon Age: Origins, i must say i took some offense. It's a wonderfull game that broke years of hungry for a good RPG game to many players. Each of those new games brought with them some new awersome features.
Dragon Age: Origins background choice based on race, made a entire diferent epilogue for each race of the game, the kind of coherence that brought for the game is unmeasurable. foward on i see this as a feature that any good RPG game in that style should follow.
Dragon Age 2, while not my favorite game, made an interesting feature, it slice the timeline of the game in many parts and linked them, so based on what you do in the first part of the game, some quests are avaliable to you and others are not. This raise the replay interest a lot for me.
Mass Effect series made the same feature but more focused between the game itself, what an imported mass effect character did on the first game, would have serious repercutions in Mass Effect 2, and the same in Mass Effect 3.
So, to end this post, i think that in their each way, each of the games i listed here put their name on history, on their own way. The lesson isn't from old games for new games, but from history to everyone, as we should take the better of each game ever done to increase the quality of new games. Be bound to the past isn't anything else but stagnation.
Ps: An D&D game, with character development based on infinite engine/aurora engine D&D games (BG, IWD, NWN, PS:T...), with the background feature from DA:O, the consequence repercution existing in DA2 and ME series, the the unpredictability consequence of acts existing in The Wicher, and engaging stories as Final Fantasy III, VII, Chrono Thrigger... that would be an heaven's sight, for me at least
So BG has, in my opinion, more realistic dialogue choices. What I mean is that in new RPGs you often find you only have two options... good or evil. Should I be saintly or demonic? That's it. Hell you might get lucky and get a third, more neutral choice but that's about it.
Personally I don't like this. I don't believe in good or evil. I hear people say "I'm going to play an evil mage". I think... "what does that mean". When I play I say "I'm going to play a rogue wanting to clean up the streets and to do so he will even become the very thing he hates
Older RPGs have more dialogue choices and more realistics dialogue choices. There isn't just the good and evil choice. You can be the asshole, the mercenary, the sadist, the saint, the false hope, the nonchalant. In Fallout 2 I played as a female character and decided that I would be quite... erm... "giving" with myself so to speak. My character was weak... so very weak but she was intelligent and charismatic. She would use her feminine charms and even her body as a commodity to get what she wanted. I haven't seen this kind of gameplay allowed in any newer RPG. It made things very interesting especially when I would run across another female character... I was always at quite the disadvantage with them.
Another thing that I always always always think about when I wonder what are some things that older RPGs have over newer ones is that your companions can die. In BG/IWD/PS:T/Fallout a companion can die. But it's ok... they can (most of the time) be brought back to life (in Fallout... they can't). In new RPGs they just get "knocked unconscious".
Take Fallout for example. I played it rather recently, a few years ago. I was using a mod to allow me to have as many companions as I liked. It made it quite fun. I recruited everybody I could. A few people died for me... killed by raiders, mutants and god knows what else. I remember the final boss in Fallout 1. I had six or so in my party when I confronted him. But every turn that went by one of them died. By the time I finally managed to kill him it was only me left. I can't explain how it feels to know that you walked with five friends and you leave alone.
Another thing is that in newer RPGs you often HAVE to meet the companions. In BG there were no compulsory companions. Imoen was the only one... and that is debatable as well I guess. Even Khalid and Jaheira... you can just give them the finger and tell them you don't need their help. Probably not the smartest thing to do but by damn could it make things interesting.
Now how are DA choices superior? Well I personally believe that newer RPGs' dialogue choices have longer reaching consequences. In BG you make a choice and it has an immediate effect. Maybe you will even face the consequences of your choice later in that chapter but that's as far as it goes. In DA you can make a choice that has an immediate effect but also one that appears much later in the game (or even in a sequel game).
In Mass Effect 2 you get a special banter with an asari in Illium.
In Mass Effect 3 the true consequence of release or not the Rachni queen appear, i will not spoil it too much for you but she does not break her word if you have spared her, this is the only spoil i will offer.
About your last comment i didn't get why a history where a baby saved become a monstruous person is something twilighted. You understand that could be exactly BG history, no? In BG2 ToB, you discover that you mother was a priest of Bhaal, that tried to sacrifice you when you where a baby, alongside other bhaalspawns. Gorion interfered with the sacrifice cerimony and killed your mother and the other priests, freeing the childrens and choosing you and Imoen as his ward. If you become evil later, you will be exactly a hitler that was saved when a baby.
"When we started development of the Realms of Arkania games in 1989, it was our goal to duplicate the experience of a pen&paper roleplaying session as best as we could. While we may have gone overboard in terms of detail and overwhelmed players with depth in the process, the games offered unsurpassed flexibility in many ways. It is the reason why they are still so popular today and have fan communities dedicated to and re-playing them even 25 years after their release. But make no mistake, even those games were severely hampered.
In today’s world, technology is no longer truly a limiting factor, and yet, computer roleplaying games have moved farther away from their pen&paper origins than ever. Perhaps it is time for the CRPG genre to re-examine itself—a necessary step if we want to take the computer roleplaying genre to its next evolutionary rung.
Virtually all triple-A computer roleplaying games have been reduced to a very simple formula. You run around, you fight opponents, you talk to friendly NPCs and you follow fairly static quest lines. In most cases, the player will feel fairly detached from the actual experience because the in-game auto pilot makes sure you never have to invest any of your own thinking prowess or imagination, or read a single line of dialogue for that matter—though you will have to click mindlessly through them. You’ll never get lost either because the mapping features will always let you find your way from quest point A to point B without deviation, and if you are lucky, once in a blue moon, you may actually be allowed to make a decision that has some sort of consequence. Puzzles are exceedingly rare and when you stumble across them, typically at the end of a dungeon, they have the solution already built-in or are of a rather mundane arranging or do-something-in-the-correct-order kind of sort. Anything, really, to make sure the player never gets stuck or even held up for more than a few seconds.
Real roleplaying is about choices
Not that this isn’t fun, but a real roleplaying game is a much different affair than that. What we are looking at here is a mere skeleton of the original genre, boiled down to its bare essentials, and then some. Alternative solutions to problems and paths are usually not available.
But what if you don’t wish to fight an opponent? Why should you feel a need to attack every single breathing being in the wilderness, just because they appear unfriendly? What if you want to barter with a troll instead of gutting him with a spectacular finishing move? What if you’d rather charm your way out of a situation? What if you would prefer to sneak up to and steal any quest artifact without having to kill the enemy? Very few games will offer you any of these options unless they are specifically part of the desired solution path.
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It has been almost 20 years since Baldur’s Gate steered the RPG genre away from the abyss of oblivion and took it to a more mainstream audience. It has been almost equally long since Everquest popularized true open-world design in the genre. However, in the long years since, the design of computer roleplaying games has evolved very little. The visuals may be more dazzling, the storylines ever more complex, and the worlds ever larger, waiting to be explored with their rich tapestry of flora, fauna, and denizenry but at the core what they have always been truly missing is a beating heart."
Just read the whole article, it's a wonderful piece.
One o my favorite is ultima underworld which features character creation process consists of choose 3 main atats, 7 classes and about 14 skills to combine at your service.
But...... Yeah you got the point, RPG protagonist is supposed to be "you".
One thing he didn't touch upon, and which I think had contributed greatly to the problem we have now, is that the focus has shifted from gameplay to narrative. If I wanted good story with graphics, I'd play visual novel or watch a movie.
But there is too much dependence on combat as the only challenge. If you select "increase the difficulty" the only thing that changes is the combat.
Linking back to the original post, it is excessive hand holding that has neutered the fun of character creation. Designers are so afraid of a player creating a "bad" character that they remove all meaningful choices.
I'd happily sacrifice costumization for an intricate story and game play, yes bg had 11 classes and majority played the same with a little frosting here and there to try and make them feel different. Those classes became even less when people started powergaming because then people just repeated the same classes over and over.