Why do games continue to survive (not the best title but)
DragonKing
Member Posts: 1,979
Ok I wasn't sure if I should put this in general discussion or off topic even though BG is apart of this.
Why do some old games continue to survive, ok no continue to survive might not be the right phrase. How about, continued to be played almost religiously? Morrowind, Baldur's Gate, and my personal religiously played game final fantasy tactics.
My own personal vice again is FFT, I played this game when I was younger, did every thing possible in this game. Took the main character, unlocked every class for him, got all those classes to level 10. Got him and my entire team, even characters i never played to level 99. I hunted for all the secret characters, unlocked all the special items and secret weapons. I knew the story like the back of my hand and when all was said and done what do you think i did?
Went back and played it all over again, I had my main 100% completion save and then I had several other saved files. Each play through, I didn't progress chapter one unless I was a specific class. While this might seem "so what"to some of you, but to people who may remember the game. You may remember there were some weapons that didn't even become available until chapter 3, and chapter one was the most story driven chapter out of all of them. After you met with Ramza's brother at the castle, you could only have random encounters on Madalia Plain, constantly going between The Magick City of Gariland and Eagrose Castle, and this was hell! Its early game, YOu have almost no potions, very minimal equipment and if you have to fight a entire team of yellow chocobo... yea just -bleep- your life. Add onto that random encounters don't seem to happen as often in chapter 1. When you're just trying to continue the story, they seem like they always happen, but when you have a set goal in mind they never come.
Add onto the fact to unlock classes, required certain classes to reach certain level. While classes like summoner and monk were straight forward, unlocking Dancer required a level 5 geomancer and level 5 dragoon, or a samurai required level 5 monk, level 4 knight, and a level 2 dragoon. Add onto this samurai and dragoons base weapons didn't come out until chapter 3. I did mention I played the game with literally every class and I'm not talking about unlocking them as I played, I mean I unlocked them in chapter 1 the very second I was able to move on my own. This includes mime... who requires... a level 5 summoner, level 8 chemist, level 8 squire, level 5 geomancer, level 5 dragooner, and level 5 orator.
I also did this with final fantasy tactics the lions war on psp, my very first play through, I didn't leave chapter 1 until I was a dark knight... and level freaking 47! I've done it so far, I'll share the requirements to unlock this thing. Collect 20 crystals from 20 kills (by far the most effing annoying part), mastered knight, a masted Black mag (these two were not effing east, and hands down the most time consuming; to master a class you have to learn ALL of its abilities, needless to say I got them both to level 10 before mastering them), Level 8 samurai. level 8 dragoon, level 8 ninja. Just to unlock this class you had to unlock classes like samurai and ninja who in their own right both require a low, mid, and high tier classes to unlock. Classes which main weapons aren't even available until chapter 3! Especially with samurai who requires you to have several different types of katanas in your inventory to even use its Spirit in the sword abilities.
I would do this all again in heartbeat because I am just so in love with that game! Final fantasy Tactics is a linear story based game that once you beat it, you may miss out on some secret but ultimately the story doesn't change much like morrowind and baldur's gate (yea I said it; hate me all you want) , and yet the game commands so much devotion in me, much like morrowind and BG does to its loyal fan base, but why? What is it really about these games that many of us have played a thousand times, stories and fights We've repeated over and over again with different characters and classes; already knowing what tactics will work and what the outcome will be. We know the vast majority of the game, we know the secrets and the wonders, so why do we still continue to return to them and play what we've played a thousand times?
Edit,
For those of you who are actually interested, here is a map layout of the classes, as obvious the left side is physical and the right side is more magic based, but geomancer is more magic based physical and mimes are annoying a-holes. Also dancer is more magical than physical, like the bard. But unlike the bard who supports with his spells, dancer causes debuffs with her dances.
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/3/3a/FFTWOTLjob.png/revision/latest?cb=20110226011805
Why do some old games continue to survive, ok no continue to survive might not be the right phrase. How about, continued to be played almost religiously? Morrowind, Baldur's Gate, and my personal religiously played game final fantasy tactics.
My own personal vice again is FFT, I played this game when I was younger, did every thing possible in this game. Took the main character, unlocked every class for him, got all those classes to level 10. Got him and my entire team, even characters i never played to level 99. I hunted for all the secret characters, unlocked all the special items and secret weapons. I knew the story like the back of my hand and when all was said and done what do you think i did?
Went back and played it all over again, I had my main 100% completion save and then I had several other saved files. Each play through, I didn't progress chapter one unless I was a specific class. While this might seem "so what"to some of you, but to people who may remember the game. You may remember there were some weapons that didn't even become available until chapter 3, and chapter one was the most story driven chapter out of all of them. After you met with Ramza's brother at the castle, you could only have random encounters on Madalia Plain, constantly going between The Magick City of Gariland and Eagrose Castle, and this was hell! Its early game, YOu have almost no potions, very minimal equipment and if you have to fight a entire team of yellow chocobo... yea just -bleep- your life. Add onto that random encounters don't seem to happen as often in chapter 1. When you're just trying to continue the story, they seem like they always happen, but when you have a set goal in mind they never come.
Add onto the fact to unlock classes, required certain classes to reach certain level. While classes like summoner and monk were straight forward, unlocking Dancer required a level 5 geomancer and level 5 dragoon, or a samurai required level 5 monk, level 4 knight, and a level 2 dragoon. Add onto this samurai and dragoons base weapons didn't come out until chapter 3. I did mention I played the game with literally every class and I'm not talking about unlocking them as I played, I mean I unlocked them in chapter 1 the very second I was able to move on my own. This includes mime... who requires... a level 5 summoner, level 8 chemist, level 8 squire, level 5 geomancer, level 5 dragooner, and level 5 orator.
I also did this with final fantasy tactics the lions war on psp, my very first play through, I didn't leave chapter 1 until I was a dark knight... and level freaking 47! I've done it so far, I'll share the requirements to unlock this thing. Collect 20 crystals from 20 kills (by far the most effing annoying part), mastered knight, a masted Black mag (these two were not effing east, and hands down the most time consuming; to master a class you have to learn ALL of its abilities, needless to say I got them both to level 10 before mastering them), Level 8 samurai. level 8 dragoon, level 8 ninja. Just to unlock this class you had to unlock classes like samurai and ninja who in their own right both require a low, mid, and high tier classes to unlock. Classes which main weapons aren't even available until chapter 3! Especially with samurai who requires you to have several different types of katanas in your inventory to even use its Spirit in the sword abilities.
I would do this all again in heartbeat because I am just so in love with that game! Final fantasy Tactics is a linear story based game that once you beat it, you may miss out on some secret but ultimately the story doesn't change much like morrowind and baldur's gate (yea I said it; hate me all you want) , and yet the game commands so much devotion in me, much like morrowind and BG does to its loyal fan base, but why? What is it really about these games that many of us have played a thousand times, stories and fights We've repeated over and over again with different characters and classes; already knowing what tactics will work and what the outcome will be. We know the vast majority of the game, we know the secrets and the wonders, so why do we still continue to return to them and play what we've played a thousand times?
Edit,
For those of you who are actually interested, here is a map layout of the classes, as obvious the left side is physical and the right side is more magic based, but geomancer is more magic based physical and mimes are annoying a-holes. Also dancer is more magical than physical, like the bard. But unlike the bard who supports with his spells, dancer causes debuffs with her dances.
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/3/3a/FFTWOTLjob.png/revision/latest?cb=20110226011805
6
Comments
I haven't played Morrowind for over ten years, but I can still remember my character's name, class and appearance. Same with Daggerfall, I can still remember my character from a 20 year old game. Games like that just stay with you.
As for the more general topic, I'd say that love of particular game franchises is very individual, and cannot be analyzed effectively. It's a "je ne sais quoi" sort of thing.
There are a few elements that go into the psychological alchemical mix, though. One must be old enough to have actually played old school games in the first place. Nostalgia for whatever age one discovered them is a factor. Personal taste for art and music design is a factor. That's just a few examples. What kinds of games one falls in love with is highly dependent on a myriad of variables from one's personal background, and that's assuming a person becomes a gamer at all.
It would be most interesting to hear in this thread from someone who discovered and fell in love with an old game like BG *as an adult*, never having played it or fantasy RPG's in general during youth.
Let's assume anyone who is even marginally interested in this topic has at least become a person who likes gaming in general. Then, the question would be, for anyone who became a gamer during youth, or at any age, during the most recent generational years, say, 2000-2016, has any such person discovered an older game and fallen in love with it?
If so, the next question would be, was there a parent or family member who influenced that choice?
If we want to pose and then defend the hypothesis that there is some kind of universal and timeless appealing quality to games like BG, then we need a person or people to tell us that they discovered that game in youth, and independently of an older family member playing the game and exposing them to it during their childhood.
I highly doubt that we will find a person like that, much less a plurality of such people that might reinforce any conclusions.
It's probably pure nostalgia that we see in the marketing of old games today. The people who were the first youth to ever have video and computer games to play when technology became advanced enough to make those a thing, are now entering middle and old age. Once the currently middle-aged and few elders who are gamers die off, we will, I hypothesize, see these older games die off with them, unless they manage to hook in enough of their offspring to keep the old franchises going.
It's not impossible that that could happen, if we compare the history of video gaming with the history of television. There have been several generations that have watched and can appreciate and refer to, for example, "Gilligan's Island", despite the show having been produced and ended at least three generations ago (The Greatest Generation, The Lost Generation, Baby Boomers, and Generation X have all likely grown up or spent part of their adulthood watching shows from the 1950's and 1960's.)
Treating this topic with any seriousness would require an entire master's thesis or doctoral dissertation, along with lots and lots of sociological research involving countless interviews with thousands of people from ages 5-95.
No, I was using FFT as my example, since it is the vary game that falls under that category for me. For example, I can't play baldur's gate the same way. I've beat it twice already, and every playthrough i've attempted so far literally ended with me stopping out of boredom. It is still a very linear story driven game much like fft (seriously like many other wrpg I've played you have to illusion of choice but most choices ultimately leads to one of 2 outcomes), So I can't really use a game that doesn't pull out that passion that I'm ultimately trying to question the why does it exist.
While I know a lot of members can do and feel the exact same way about bg, in my time of making a nuisance out of myself on these forums, I've read multiple post from multiple veteran members of the forums who talk on the level of how they have and can play BG inside out and never lose its luster (much like myself and FFT). Doing it in the modern day will definitely has a lot to do with nostalgia. The problem here is, the above, up until I started talking about the dark knight which wasn't in the original FFT as a playable class (trust me I trade everything short of a gameshark to get it in the original), but the the infatuation for the game that didn't vanish over the years.
I fell in love with many games over the years, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Rise of nations, Mortal Kombat, Zone of the Enders, Evil Genius, Baldur's Gate, Elemental series, Smite, Demigod, Phantom Dust, The Divinity series, and many many others but the only game that has ever came close to entrapping me was the original Phantom Dust and to a lesser extent, Rise of nations thrones and patriots.
Hell the only Reason I probably have more hours in FFT than Phantom dust is because I didn't even know about PD when it came out. It went so far under the radar that I only saw a single advertisement for it, ever and it was randomly on the internet.
But again, the purpose of the discussion was not to discuss the game itself per-say but the actual connection that is created between that game and the gamer. Like I said I fell in love with BG or Divinity Original sins, but I can't play it like when I first fell in love with FFT when I was young. It could be said that maybe the age also played a important part of creating that level of connection, just like how a lot of strong connections I see with BG also comes from those players connection with DND table top rpg.
A interesting story, I don't feel will be too far off here...
Every so often I try to get my roommate to play with me in Rise of nations. Rise of nations is a game I really love, but I don't play that often. I'll binge it and then stop playing for a 7 months to a year or so and than binge it again. Almost every single time I try to get him to play he declines and when I ask him why responds. "Because I'm going to get destroyed and I don't like resource management games." I always reply,"I haven't played this game in forever and I barely remember anything about how to play it efficiently" (which is usually try). He corresponds with this, "Yea, but there are something gamers just never forget and for you those two things are Rise of nations, and playing phantom dust!" He really hates my two aura arsenal... god I miss that game.
Now the purpose of this story is the idea that even after years of not playing, we ultimately never forget how to play that game, but the thing is we first have to get to the where it becomes engraved in use from the get go.
Ok, I suck at explaining what I'm trying to convey here and this is why I'm not a literature major >.>
Recently I've been noticing I despise modern game design and so stuff like the Gold Box Games, older Elder Scrolls Games, Infinity Engine games, and the like have become favorites of mine. FFT was my favorite when I was a console gamer but since then NWN2, BG1/BG2, and PoE have overtaken it and FFT is 4th place on my favorite games list.
Edit: Currently I'm playing Champions of Krynn on my laptop and loovvee it
after that incident, over a period of a couple of years I was always trying to find video game consoles and get them to work, but usually I would fail ( we had bits and pieces of ataris and nintendos) but no matter what configuration I did, I just couldn't get them up and running, and then in grade 2 I met an awesome friend who owned a Nintendo and he let me borrow it, and he had a game called mega man 3 ( and to this day, mega man 3 is still my favourite nes game) and mega man 3 blew me away, it felt so much more advanced than Mario world and it was just plan awesome to play, and my friend was also super good at the game so we would play it for hours and hours having a blastio
and then, one of the happiest days of my life came; Christmas of 1995 I believe, I received my very own NES, and I was STOKED, probably almost peed myself, although at that time super Nintendo and sega were the prime systems, I was just happy to have my own NES, and better yet, my friend game me mega man 3 as a gift as well, so I was in my glory
shortly after that time we moved to Ontario ( from British Columbia ) and I met a new friend, and he owned... a sega genesis, and I couldn't believe how awesome it was, the colors were crisper, the games were faster, and just felt so much more advanced as well, the games he had were sonic 2, sonic spinball, and one of my favourite genesis games: mortal kombat 3 ultimate, I couldn't believe how awesome sega was, and I was wanted one after seeing how awesome my new Ontario friend's sega was
so as things go, another faithful Christmas, and I get another awesome Christmas surprise: a sega genesis, and again I was so STOKED, and I played the hell out of it, and I even got an extra controller ( which had 6 buttons instead of the standard 3, which made playing mortal kombat waaaaay better) and even 2 games: sonic 2 and asterix, and even though I wasn't so hot for asterix, my friend loved playing it, so we would swap, while he was playing asterix I would play mortal kombat 3 ultimate
and over the coarse of the 3 years that we lived in Ontario my NES game collection grew ( I believe I hit 19 games in total ) but not so much on the sega side ( my friend owned the plethora of sega games) and then 1997 came by and the n64 came out, blowing every system out of the water, I remember it was such a HUGE thing back then, and everyone was going bananas on how crazy cool and awesome and amazing the graphics were, which ironically I wasn't really all that impressed because I thought it looked really blocky, but I think the majority of people were thrilled that they were actually playing in true 3d environments and not whacky 2d/ pseudo 3d environments
so when the n64 came out, I wanted one soooo badly, but the problem was, it was expensive as hell at the time ( I believe I was around 9 or 10 at the time) and to dish out 200 bucks was just out of reach, especially goldeneye, which back in the day was basically the best game ever made, people were going straight nuts for it, and at the time, it actually was a quite impressive game, but it was also a killer 120 bucks, so dishing out 320 bucks when you were a kid in the 90s, was just out of reach, and even though I got a Nintendo and sega for Christmas when I did, they were both used systems so my parents could actually afford them, and an n64? unfortunately no dice, it was way too new and too expensive so it was out of reach, but in the end, I was quite content with my NES and genesis so it was all bad
and then came grade 7 the n64 has been out a couple of years and I was dieing to have one, so I had a birthday party and invited around 10+ people to it, and luckily to me, all the guests brought money for bday presents ( because I just moved back to BC and so I was basically the new guy at school again so no one knew what to get me) and luck for me my parents gave me 100 dollars for my bday ( and for me, back in 1999 or 2000 that was A LOT of money for me) so I was stoked, a hit just over 200 bucks in bday money and my n64 senses were tingling, so I don't remember where we went but we bought a used n64, and it came with an extra controller, and 2 games, gt 64 and I cant quite remember the other one, I want to say Mario 64, anyway I was in paradise, finally I bought the n64, the godly console, and over time I was buying/ getting gifted more games and just loving every single one
and then one day.... a very fateful day..... that changed my gaming life forever in the best of ways.... we went over to our neighbour's house one day ( again around the same time, I believe I was in grade 6 actually) and one of the neighbours brought me to his PC and showed me a game called Baldur's gate... and well.... I have a whole other novel for that somewhere else on this forum ( I believe its in the "your first experience with Baldur's gate" or something er rather) so anyways that happened as well
so, a couple of years would go buy and the arsenal of n64 games was piling up ( I must have been getting close to 20 or so) and my wonder NES and genesis starting hitting retirement, they had great runs, but it was time for them to depart, so I started trading in my NES and genesis and all their games to get more n64 games and life was good, and then rumors of this new "super" system was coming out, called: PS2
so, one summer ( I believe it was the summer going into grade 9 or 10) and I went to go work with my dad doing carpentry, and holy crap I was getting my ass kicked, I was not used to such intense labor and I was basically a snail in molasses, in fact I was so "fast" my dad nick named my lightning ( friggin' lol buddy) anyway, I only lasted a 5 days, BUT I earned 400 bucks, and another 100 bucks from what my dad owed me ( I don't know how I had 100 to lend him in the first place, but all I know is that I had a whooping 500 bones) and again, back in those days to be a lazy ass high school schmuck, 500 dollars basically felt like a million, so I took my sweetski fortune and went to go buy the uber ps2, so I bought: the system, 2 extra controllers, the multitap, a memory card and..... I was out of money, all this sweet hardware and NO games to play on it, oh the delicious irony, luckily the parents were fortunate enough to lend me some money to rent games from this strange and whacky place called..... blockbuster ( ah the good ol' days eh? ) anyway, same stories same piles, Christmas and brithdays came by and games started to pile up, and I was having a field day with all the awesome games I started getting
now, despite all this craziness and all this console gaming, I was also playing another game in the background: the BG series, for the first few years we struggled trying to own a PC because we were poor and they were expensive back in the day ( you know around 600-900 bucks, a killer price for us) so I could play it when we owned store bought PCs for like a month or so before we had to bring it back because we couldn't afford to play it, and then momsies decided to go back to school ( because she never finished highschool when she was a kid) so she wanted to get her grade 12 so she could go out and get the proverbial "real job", so anway, because she had rheumatoid arthritis, they gave her a PC that was valued at a killer 1500 bucks for...... FREE, I couldn't believe it, and ironically enough, I used that PC waaaaaaay more than mom did, and that was back in the day when the Pentium 4 first came out, clocking at 1.6 GHz, it destroyed SoA and made it run as smooth as eggs, and ever since that day, I always had to play PC games on max settings, all because of that PC
so anyways, over the highschool years, I would go between the n64, ps2 and PC gaming all the way till the end of highschool, by then, my n64 crave was dieing out, and my ps2 was going strong, and the game that I had the most game hours on was final fantasy X ( which was the first final fantasy I ever played, and the reason why I bought it? I heard the game was crap because it had "way too many" cut scenes, so for the lulz, I bought straight on that fact that it was supposed to be garbage so I considered it a dare to buy, and ironically enough I put 360+ hours into that game file before I stopped playing it about 7 years ago) and at this time I had my own PC, even though it was garbage and BG2 lagged haaaaaaaaaaaaard on it
so then I turned 19, and I finally started getting a full time job, where I was actually making some moola, and it was great, saved up 1000 bucks and bought a new PC that ran SoA no sweat ( and by this time SoA was already an old game, even ToB came out 5 years prior to this time) but I was still in love with the bg series, and I still kept playing them over and over again ( along with some other titles, but BG still dominated)
and then, one day, ( i believe i was 20 at this time) the 1970s1980s TV that I was using for my ps2 ( it had wood casing and was on wheels) finally died, and stopped working, so I went to future shop to buy a new tv for my ps2, and I had around 300 bucks on me, so I thought; ah, piece of cake, go in come out, new tv life will be good...... well, 3 maxed out credit cards later I bought a brand new 46" sharp aquos tv that cost a killer 4600 bucks ( whoops) and I thought; daaaaaaaaaamn, that was a lot more than I wanted to spend, oh well friggin LOL, at least its going to look awesome............ and then I brought this beast home and placed it on top of my old tv ( because the old tv was just such a great tv stand) and I plugged the ps2 in, and it looked like garbage, and I was like, say friggin what bud? what sorcery is this? so I went back to future shop and asked what was up, and apparently HD tvs came with different rules than the old analog tvs ( I believe HD was only out for maybe its second year at this point in time) so I was like what do I do? so the homes said you can either buy the HD cables for your ps2 or you can buy a ps3 that has backwards compatibility ( and this was also the same time that ps3 just came out, costing a crazy 500 bucks) so I said, well lets go with the hd cables, came home, plugged her in, and it run in 480, and most of us know what 480 is, and so we all know what I did after that.... back to future shop and lets buy the ps3 because 480 looks like garbage, and now for some more irony:
I buy the ps3 for its killer 500 dollar price tag, and best part was? I bought the wrong one, at that time there were 2 ps3 types, one that was backwards compatible with ps1 games, and one that was backwards compatible with ps2 games, and so I bought the one that only played ps1 games, the friggin' lols were out of control, so what did I do? did I send it back and get the right one? heeeeell no, why do something reasonable like that? so instead I ditched the ps2 altogether and started buying ps3 games, because they did look pretty sexy so I didn't mind, but then, something weird was starting to happen, I was around 21 at the time, and I could slowly started to see my console game love starting to die off, I would buy a ps3 game play it for about maybe 4 hours and never play it again because either A, my friend would come over, play it, beat it, so then I had no desire to finish it, or B, I just starting losing love for console gaming and started becoming a PC gamer, so when I was around 21, I never played on a physical console ever again, and infact I sold my ps3 to my brother for 50 bucks a year or so later because all it was doing was collecting dust
and now, we finally get to the part why I believe we still love playing the old games as we do
I think that back in the day, it was very hard to make games look super impressive ( for example, back in the years of 98-99 there was no way you could make a game look as amazing as say the witcher 3, or skyrim or call of duty 4 or whatever) it just wasn't possible, you could make games look good for their time, but I think that especially in the 90s and early 2000s, it was more about gameplay than it was on looks, I think more love when into how fun the game was to actually play than how pretty it was, now buy all means they always gave their best efforts to make games look good, but as I say games could never look as good as they do now adays so they had to be more creative on how to get players to play their games, so I think a major decision in all that is the gameplay
I also think another factor is that, especially when you hit the late 90s, there was tons of opportunity for new ideas, 3d graphics were finally coming into a level where it was actual real 3d, and polygon counts of sprites and objects were increasing making things look more life like, and you could just feel the creative energy that was put into games that also made them fun to play
and then around when the ps3 came out, I think I noticed something, developers were starting to get burned out it seemed, games were getting shorter and it felt that games were getting more rushed, and that finished polish that developers used to put into their games to make the as fun as possible was starting to fade out, now with that being said, of coarse there are still tons of new games that are fun to play, but for me, I just feel like its a generic mess that is just waaay too much effort to get through, and that is why when I started to try and play new games, I could only do it for a couple to maybe 4 hours before I just couldn't play it anymore, it almost felt like a chore to play new games, and I think that's what started to turn me off, it felt like they were putting all that "creative energy" into how amazing the game looked as opposed to how fun the game was to play
when the ps3 gen consoles came out graphics and graphic standards started to sky rocket, and things had to look as pretty as hell or else people wouldn't buy the new titles, like why would someone buy a ps3 game when it looks exactly the same as its ps3 counterpart? I think that is what happened, all the energy goes into making games look pretty more than the creative energy that they used to make games unbelievably fun, but as I said before im not saying that there is no such thing as games that aren't fun any more, tons of players are having blastios with all their new titles, and no doubt lots of new games that come out are just straight up awesome to play, but for me, I feel as if the magic that made video games what they were especially back in the past, is long gone, and now its just burnt out forced games that seem to not have the same love and effort as they did 20 years ago, were they were forced to have genius ways on how to make game play fun with the limitations they had
so I think that is the reason why, some of us love our games that can be as old as 20 years or older, because we love all the effort and care that went into that game to make it the master piece it is, we are great full that we were fortunate enough to play them when we did, and we keep going back to them, because those games still keep their creative energy, their game play is awesome, its fun as hell, we love their stories, and we just love playing them, and the fact that we still get to play them 10s of years later just adds so much more glee and maybe it also reminds us of how awesome the gaming world was back in the day when you didn't need 12 GB memory cards to play games on ultra settings, sometimes all you needed was a system that only had a control pad, start, select and an A and B button, and you were in your glory
so for me, every once in a few years I will buy and play a new game ( and actually beat it, amazingly enough) but I will always play my BG series, through hell or high water, sometimes I need to take a 1 or 2 month break, but then I go back on my BG binge ( and during that break from bg what am I doing? playing all the fun PC/console titles from the late 90s to early 2000s)
so that's my novel, hopefully you enjoyed my nostalgia trip, and if you actually read through this entire thing, I take my hat off to your sir/madam
For me, gaming becomes an escape from reality. I used to guiltily believe this was unhealthy, but I don't believe that so much anymore. Although I never let my games come between me and my family, or my obligations, because I believe that is wrong, sometimes you really need a break from the stresses of real life.
People have been trying to escape reality for a long time. In my experience, it has often ironically been the alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts, and even the tv addicts in my life that have so harshly criticized me for my "unhealthy" pastime. Gaming, even as an addiction, is definitely better than any of those addictions (I'm not saying that I'm addicted, because I am definitely not...I just like it), although no addiction is good.
So, because gaming companies haven't really been able to nail down the elusive "magic ingredient" that makes their game stand out above the rest, they have resorted to creating addictive casino style games...they're all over the AppStore and even google play. Those are the money makers, man. Those games, which are cheap to produce and turn a huge profit, are where the market is at today. Even rpg games are trying to appeal to hat addiction crowd. The gaming industry is now owned and run by the big corporations, and they only care about the bottom dollar. Maybe that's why some of those games feel so much like work, and aren't fun: they are born of the same spirit as the workforce that I am a part of right now.
Since we are talking about the 90s a bit in this thread, allow a geezer to reminisce. It used to be that you could easily find (at blockbuster, yes I know) dozens of games of high quality, and so it became choosing a game that appealed to your particular taste. Today, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack for high quality games. Then some game comes out that actually is high quality writing (at least in comparison to its competition), and suddenly it's this huge success! Everyone is like, wow that game is so deep...meanwhile, I'm thinking, "yeah, not that deep. Good graphics, sure. But I have played much better written games than this."
I keep going back to baldurs gate and the infinity engine games because they help me to escape reality and I like them. I go back to my other favorite games, like magic candle, and master of magic, and ultima 7, and Starcraft, and Diablo, because they give me a break from real life and i like them, but not in an addictive way, not to the point where I am just blowing real money on fake money. I go back to these games because they feel fun, they feel like they were made by real people who love life and know what it's like to be a real person. They aren't strategically optimized to hit the largest audience and appeal to the lowest common denominator to earn the highest profit with the lowest cost. They were written by people who just wanted to make a good game. You can feel it in the writing and the care and thought that they put into it.
I mean, seriously, what game today would have as many Easter Eggs as baldurs gate??? Any? And I don't mean Easter Eggs that if you find them all you get an achievement...but Easter Eggs that if you find it, cool, if not, whatever, it doesn't do anything! I can't think of any big name games that do that. That alone speaks to the care that was taken in making this game.
This is the biggest reason why I support Beamdog in an almost blind faith fashion, despite their mistakes: because they are a small company of sincere people that just want to make a high quality successful game. It's not about market optimization, or global strategy, or stock. They are real people living real lives making real games.
Personally, I remember me as a child playing BG, I remember me as a teenager playing it and I remember me as a younker playing it. The same can be said about Heroes of Might and Magic, Might and Magic, Age of Empires 1 and 2.
And I remember how in each age I found new tactics, new ways to approach this or that situation, new favourite classes.
And when I became an adult, I kept finding all those. BUT - i had an extra of my own memory of myself, and my own memory of my own evolution of opinions.
These games became one of those things that influenced me as a person, in the same row as books and real life doings.
But as the person is growing up, it becomes more and more difficult to see changes in themselves. I mean, everyone will say that they in their 40th differ from themselves in their 30th a lot less than they in their 20th differ from themselves in their 10th.
This is why, I think, it's harder for something found in later years, to get the same place in my heart as for something found in my younger years. I don't say it's impossible. I just say that the process when I was growing up is hard to match by anything else.
And I personally cherish those memories.
This is why I'm going to show games like Baldur's Gate to my children (when I'll have them), so that they could experience something like I did.
But really, the games that really grabbed me - Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, Fallout, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Starcraft, Diablo II - I started playing in my late 20s to early 30s. Morrowind I played the heck out of for about three months straight when I first picked it up in 2002, and I go back to it semi-regularly. I don't always play it all the way through, but I do often play a significant portion of the game. One thing that really grabs me with games that hold my attention is the soundtrack. Morrowind's music takes me right back to 2002. Mass Effect's takes me back to 2008. When I play these games, I play it as much for the nostalgia value as anything, and the music is a huge part of that - and it applies to most of the games I really enjoyed in the late 90s/early 2000s. There ain't nothing like starting up an old favorite and hearing the main menu music. Just as much for IWD, BG2 (even more than BG), NWN, Warcraft II especially.
Also as a bit of an aside, Skyrim's use of the Morrowind theme in Dragonborn totally works on me - both starting with drums mimicking a heartbeat, and then having a section that is literally Morrowind's theme music - which probably contributed to making Skyrim one of my favorites in terms of ambience.
Also, my favorite video game composer: Jeremy Soule, hands down.
The best toys I had in my youth were toy soldiers made of lead... or marbles, there wasn't even a television in our house until after the Queen's coronation. I think I classify for this. :P
I really don't think there's much more to is than: I'd say it's the same regardless of whether you were an adult when you first discovered it, or whether you were a child, teen, etc.
My favourite when it comes to explaining Morrowind: "I can't explain it, it just... clicks."
Nostalgia, the remembering of the time when you first played it, the memories you have, the amusement and the occasional frustration—those memories are the primary factor, I think.
The only difference is that people are remembering different parts of their lives. For Baldur's Gate, one person might say that they enjoyed it—that "it was the best game released in the 90s," others might say "it made my childhood," or "it was an escape," while others might say "it helped me learn English." I've seen all of those reasons for Baldur's Gate, and more, but there's generally a common ground for why people like those games first place. Any or all of the following:- the setting, the story, the characters or interactions, whether the player can relate to the main character or other characters in the game, the freedom of exploration, the overall theme of the game, the music score, etc.
Though I would just like to make a note: I occasionally hear and see people mention nostalgia as though it's something bad, "you're only playing it for nostalgia." Yes, yes I am. I enjoy playing it, I enjoyed playing it a decade ago. What's the problem.
In my example of Morrowind above—the thing is, I know why I like Morrowind, it feels like fantasy; the look, the feel, the setting, the in-depth writing in many of the books within the game explaining the lore, the in-depth dialogue, the need to actually use your journal due to there being no map markers, seeking out directions, the exploration, etc. That answer is superficial, though, it doesn't explain why I like those elements—why do I enjoy getting lost, readings lots of text, finding my way again, hopping from one large mushroom to another, talking to mortals-made-godlike, etc. Saying "I love history and mythology," that's still only superficial—I can't explain why I like those things, either, only simply that I do (it boils down to the answer being mental, obviously; my brains says "this is nice," and so I do more of it).
I like Baldur's Gate for two reasons:- the Infinity Engine, and I was a D&D fan as soon as I read my first purchased Forgotten Realms source book many years ago. As I said, I like history, mythology, reading about both, studying lore, doing reserch, learning new things, etc. I see many aspects of mythology in D&D, and I love reading about it and playing in that setting (though I do wish there was more content outside of the Sword Coast, Forgotten Realms is a rich setting and yet only partially utilised).
One might think given my love of history and mythology, then, that I would enjoy Age of Mythology... and yet I found the game somewhat lacking.
Why do they continue to survive? I think that comes in three parts:- a community of dedicated fans (and potential customers when it comes to a revival), the introduction of those games to new, like-minded players of all ages (especially new generations), and people who are willing to continue to build upon those games or franchises.
"I can't explain it, it just... clicks."
Though I'll be honest, the only mod I use is the Morrowind Graphics Extender.
But Morrowind stands prominently in my memory. I was obsessed with it for a month or two once. The thing that stands out is how much there is to look around at. I used to sometimes spend a half hour or more just staring at the sky and studying the constellations and that big red moon or twin planet or whatever it is, and reading books.
Unlike @Erg, I'm not much into mods nowadays. The one thing I might want to try to get working would be the mod that increases all the eye candy to look around at. Is that the "Morrowind Graphics Extender" you mentioned, @Troodon80 ?
So, on the topic, why would you say I liked Morrowind, but only played it once, and hated Oblivion and Skyrim? (I can tell you the main thing I hated about Oblivion - the terrible level scaling. I didn't feel or notice any of the level scaling in Morrowind.)
And yet, I have played Might and Magic 6-8, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, Sacred 2, and Titan Quest dozens of times and hundreds of hours (maybe I've even broken 1,000 hours) over the years.
Looking at that profile, I think I can see a pattern, and what those particular games have in common. And I think it says more about my personality and life history than it does anything objective about the qualities of the games on that list.
I think you mean the Morrowind Overhaul - Sounds & Graphics 3.0 also known as MGSO, that includes among other mods/tools/programs also an (outdated) version of the "Morrowind Graphics Extender".
MGSO is a compilation and, as such, is easy to install for newbie, but includes both good and bad mods (imho) and mostly outdated stuff. It includes also several bugs/issues that need to be fixed. If you still want to use it because of its user-friendliness I recommend taking a look at this thread, especially the temporary fixes for known issues at the last part of the first post.
I personally prefer to create my own compilation by carefully handpicking mods.
While the game could have had level scaling on Oblivion's level, it of course didn't, and I never really understood why Bethesda went the way they did with Oblivion when Morrowind was as well-received as it was. And I mean I like Oblivion.
BTW: That's also the reason I like the EE's so much, and will always choose them over Tutu or BGT, now and forever. I know that's going to be a point of disagreement between you and me.
Have you tried Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul?
I haven't, but I heard it's very good. It supposedly fixes that crappy level scaling.
That was one of the reasons I got rid of oblivion. The level scaling was terrible.
That was before I had really been introduced to the world of mods and modding.
I always end up going for Dunmer or Breton, with some kind of battle magery.
If we want to start discussing actually playing Morrowind, I feel like we should request that a moderator separate out these Morrowind posts into a separate topic. I apologize for my role in derailing the thread.
I was waiting to see if it would get back to the question at hand, you see when people start talking about these timeless games; its always filled with such "magic" and "wonder", but many never really question that magic and wonder. Most the time it gets written off as nostalgia, but isn't there many tings in the world beside video games that create just as much nostalgia for us, but we don't stay continue to do those thing years later down the line.
And people do go back to other media. Christopher Lee re-read the Lord of the Rings trilogy every year. I rewatch Buffy and Angel every couple of years (used to be every year) as well as Farscape. I used to read A Song of Ice and Fire every year. When I was young I read and reread the Chronicles of Narnia and Alice in Wonderland+Through the Looking Glass over and over. I will probably rewatch Lost soon, maybe Breaking Bad. All of these things have nostalgia for me.