Post by Knight37Post by Ben SissonPost by Knight37Not everyone is disagreeing with Brandon. Diablo is a CRPG.
No it's not.
Uh, yes, it is, it's an action/RPG hybrid.
A meaningless term. As has been amply demonstrated by a number of
people here, virtually every game is a hybrid in some form or other.
Diablo fits action best, though, so action game it is.
Post by Knight37Post by Ben SissonYou could replace the swords and sorcery in Diablo with guns and
bayonets and not change the gameplay at all, and no one in their right
mind would call it an rpg then. As a matter of fact there were quite a
number of arcade shooters that more or less resembled exactly that.
Arcade shooters that have statistics, leveling up, and phat lewt?
Statistics? Of course. Leveling up? Of course. Phat lewt? Not in the
arcade where you don't really have continuity from one quarter to the
next, but in comparable action games on consoles and PCs? Of course.
What you describe is only one element of an rpg. You sit on this one
element and say that's all that's necessary, but it's not. It also has
elements of what defines an action game. It has *more* elements of
that, including fast action, reflexes, and dexterity.
But it's missing the other core rpg elements - a meaningfully
interactive environment and freedom of action/choices.
Don't get me wrong, D2 is a great action game (I intensely disliked
the first however), but if it were to be measured only on its rpg
elements, it would, and does, flunk.
Post by Knight37if they
did, I'd call them RPGs too. Just because Diablo is fantasy doesn't make it
an RPG, it's all the RPG trappings that make it an RPG.
It has exactly ONE rpg trapping, and that's character development. It
is sadly lacking in all others.
Post by Knight37Post by Ben SissonBut it has swords and magic, and that means to too many people that it
must be an rpg.
Not why I'm calling it that. Gaining levels, choosing skills, and picking
up gear is what makes it an RPG.
That's not what makes an rpg an rpg, IMO. An rpg isn't likely to be
more an rpg than any other genre unless it also has an environment the
characters can meaningfully interact with, and freedom to choose your
direction, to choose your role so to speak.
Comparison time: in terms of rpg elements only, D2 vs U7.5, an
archetypical rpg.
Character development: They both have it. This is where all your rpg
definition comes from, but unfortunately thats way too vague by
itself.
Interactive environment: In U7.5 your actions eventually lead to the
destruction of most of the inhabitants of the game. You interact with
and can fight both with and against the NPCs. There's a fully
integrated story that both sets what you are trying to accomplish and
limits what you are *supposed* to do, but not what you are *capable*
of doing.
In D2 you are limited to killing everything outside of town. You can't
interact inside of town to any meaningful extent beyond them telling
you what to kill next. Nothing you do inside town remotely matters to
the game.
Freedom of action: In U7.5 you choose where you go next on the basis
of hints you have obtained to that point in the process of
adventuring. You don't have to do this; indeed you can gimp your own
chances of success by self destructively killing or stealing (in older
ultimas you can even kill your boss!). If you want you can simply go
around and visit, explore, and adventure.
In D2 you are not allowed to proceed until you've killed everything
(or at least the bosses). There is nothing beyond killing. Your
actions do not affect the environment. Your actions cannot be chosen
from their moral standpoint. You are not given any choice whatsoever.
On the other hand, D2 is a much better action game than U7.5 is. The
skills needed to play well matter more, the character abilities matter
more, heck just good old reflexes matter more. As an action game,
especially as a multiplayer action game, D2 doesn't just shine, it
excels. This is why it was so popular on battlenet.
Not because of its interactive environment. Not because of its freedom
of choice. But because of its action elements.
Now you can choose to pretend that those aren't important in rpgs. But
I think you'll find people who actually like rpgs for their rpg
elements and not just their action elements do not agree. I can
guarantee this is true simply by looking at the complaints against NWN
from the solid rpg crowd - too high on action, too low on rpg. D2,
though, never really claimed to be an rpg, and its prime draw is not
to the hardcore rpgers. NWN did, hence the backlash.
Post by Knight37Post by Ben SissonAs rpgs they stink to high hell,
The quality of RPG doesn't change the fact that they are indeed RPGs.
Wrong. The quality of rpg compared to the quality of action does
indeed change that fact. You can claim anything is an rpg in some way
(almost anything at least), as again has been proven this week by
other people's posts.
Post by Knight37Post by Ben Sissonmissing elements more rpglike rpgs have had for more than a decade.
Such as?
Interactive environment, freedom of choice.
Post by Knight37Post by Ben SissonAs action games, they shine (or at least D2 does). People play
them for the action. They don't, barring some really sad souls, play
them for their rpg elements any more than people play counterstrike
for its rpg elements.
That's bullcrap. People play Diablo II for the item hunting mostly, and
item hunting / inventory stuff comes from the RPG genre, not the action
genre. Name another action game that has item hunting on the scale of
Diablo II.
You are attempting to confuse the issue. A game does not have to have
item hunting on the scale of D2 to qualify under what you said before.
In any event, you are grossly generalizing that that is why people
play. That is the reward for play, but people play for the action.
They could just get rewards by "playing" progressquest, if that really
was all they cared about.
And rpgs need more than item hunting to be rpgs. Counterstrike has
item hunting, as does the original half life. So did descent. Doom.
Even some racing games. Tons of games do. Item hunting in and of
itself is a very minor part of rpgs. To go back to U7.5, item hunting
(for yourself) was actually a very very minor part of it; you could
get through most the game without ever upgrading your gear from the
stuff you get at the beginning, other than your spellbook and the
jawbone.
Post by Knight37Post by Ben SissonPost by Knight37In fact, if
some of these "role play" definitions of CRPG were to be used instead
of the historical definition (stats and leveling up), then it would
exclude all but a handful of games from the genre. To ignore
hack-n-slash RPGs is to ignore the founding fathers of the genre
(Wizardry, Might & Magic, Bard's Tale, etc.)
Since Ultima 4 the standard of the genre has been raised.
No, it hasn't. Lionheart is an RPG too, but it's mostly hack-n-slash. If
the standard had been raised then we'd be seeing more titles like Fallout
and less titles like Might & Magic.
I haven't played lionheart. What is being developed has nothing to do
with whether or not its an rpg or not, it has to do with whether or
not people will *buy* it.
What passed for rpgs in the past (fifteen years ago) would no longer
be accepted as rpgs now. If that's all they offered in terms of rpg,
they better have something in another genre to make up for it, like
Diablo 2 did (focus on action elements instead) or HoMM did (focus on
strategy elements instead).
Post by Knight37Post by Ben Sissonchange. There's archaic rpgs from before people could make better,
before they had the TOOLS to make better, and modern rpgs. A modern
game trying to pass itself off as an rpg while having nothing more
than wizardry 1 or the early M&M would be dismissed as an obsolete
throwback, not an rpg.
Oh, that's why there's so much more role playing in Neverwinter Nights as
compared to Wizardry right? Oh wait, there's not. Dungeon Siege? Nope. The
handful of games that actually have role-playing elements do not constitute
a shift in the genre from its hack-n-slash roots.
There is indeed much more roleplaying in NWN's user made mods than in
wizardry 1. The box campaign was simply poorly done and did not
encourage or reward roleplaying aspects whatsoever. They did, however,
still exist, which they did not in D2.
And there have been plenty more than "a handful" of games that have a
meaningfully interactive environment and freedom of choice. I'm
surprised that you can't think of any.
--
Ben Sisson
1 flask of holy water: $11
1 modified crossbow: $50
1 pointy wooden stake: $1
7 seasons worth of memories of the best show on TV: priceless