By Kieron Gillen on February 1st, 2008 at 4:04 pm.
While I’d been following Fallout-but-in-fallout-of-Roman-Empire indie-RPG Age of Decadence’s development at a comfortable distance, its world collided with Rock Paper Shotgun when Walker posted a little combat teaser the team behind this indie-RPG had released. The thread exploded with readers rejecting its turn-based formality, and then there was a counter-reaction to that. It basically turned into a debate about what the RPG should be in the modern age, and so when outspoken Lead Designer Vince D Weller started chatting behind the scenes, we decided an interview may be a worthwhile thing.
The results are a slowburn towards something incendiary. Vince is angry at many things, from the industry to the modern RPG, from the expectations of audiences to… many things. In fact, it’s somewhat appropriate for a man who steadfastedly believes in multiple-possibilities in the role-playing game, that there’s multiple targets for his ire. In fact, there’s a good chance that Vince is angry with you, specifically, but his J’accuse ranges further than that. Fireworks are lit beneath the cut.
RPS: Big one first – why? Deciding to throw yourself into an indie-game requires a certain sort of mind. Trying to make an enormous multi-pathed RPG from pretty-much scratch… well, that’s another. There’s not many things as demanding, in terms of content you have to make, game in the world. Why you doing it?
Vince D. Weller: A long time ago I reluctantly installed my first RPG and the concept instantly hooked me up. Ever since then I was an avid and passionate RPG fan. The problem with being a passionate fan of a dying genre is that waiting periods between games worth playing become longer and longer, creating a lot more free time than a gamer knows what to do with. Some people start drinking, I decided to amuse myself shaping some ideas I’ve had into a game.
In the best role-playing traditions a few similarly minded folks had noticed my efforts and joined me on my quest, forming a party and Iron Tower Studio. So, why are we doing it? For the same reason a writer decides to share a story with the world and an artist picks up a brush and starts painting a naked woman. As for “why RPGs?”, it’s a genre we like, understand (read as “analyzed to death”), and care about the most.
RPS: Following from that, care to tell us a bit about your basic background. Who are you? Who is the team? How did you get together?
Vince: I use the name Vince, because my contract doesn’t allow me to manage other businesses openly. Besides, my colleagues wouldn’t understand it… I’m a Vice President, Sales & Marketing of a well-known Canadian company. I’m 37 years old and I clearly failed at that growing up thing that everyone’s raving about.
Nick’s our programmer. He’s about to graduate from a university (Computer Science and Math). He wrote an isometric 2D engine as his first year project, won several math Olympiads (he thinks that math is fun), and scored a full scholarship. Nick’s godlike programming powahz and dedication made a lot of things I could only dream of possible.
Oscar is the artist. His job is to make the game look pretty. Oscar is mostly known for his work with Oblivion mods, including the most popular Oblivion Overhaul mod, and his Civ 4 mods. Firaxis even used Oscar’s work in the Civ 4 expansion, which scored higher on his “personal achievements” chart than his MBA degree.
The rest of the team includes a modeler, an animator, and a professional composer who did some work for several Russian games.
RPS: That’s an interesting position – is it a bit like living a secret life? By day, mild-mannered VP of Sales & Marketting. By Night… Vince, all powerful Indie RPG designer? Is it difficult to keep the two parts fully demarcated in your head?
Vince: No different than having any other hobby. I know people who put a lot more effort into playing golf or drinking every day.
RPS: Well, RPS put a lot of effort into drinking every day. Er…. well, linking back to the first question, when observing your actions, part of me thinks you’re driven by a sense of necessity. No-one else is making the game you want to play, so we may as well go and bloody well do it yourselves. Is that a right impression?
Vince: Not really. There is a huge difference between making games and playing them. It’s not like I can finish the game, install it, and go “Finally! A game I want to play!”. We are making it because we believe we have some good ideas that are worth sharing with people. Considering the interest the game has generated worldwide – from many publishing offers to Future France distributing our video on their magazines’ cover CD, I’d say that our ideas were met with interest.
RPS: That’s not quite what I meant. I mean, clearly, doing a game and playing one is a different thing. But… well, a comparison. Bands form making music they’d like to hear in the world, despite the fact they can never appreciate their band like they could if they were listeners… they feel the need to make their music come into existence, because there SHOULD be music like theirs in the world. I was wondering if it was at all like that for you guys. That there should be a game like yours, that there isn’t enough annoys the hell out of you, so you have to do it your bloody selves. Does that make sense?
Vince: I humbly disagree, but you get a point for persistence. Even if everyone was making games like AoD, we would have still tried to make one and hope that it would stand out. Not because there should be a game like this, but because we really like to share our ideas with the gaming world. I have no idea how it works with music bands, so I’ll take your word for it.
RPS: Okay – Influences then. What influenced your thinking about the game – and I mean, in specifics rather than generalities. In what ways did other games open your eyes, make you realise this is what games could be and why were they wonderful?
Vince: Fallout – a masterpiece that redefined role-playing and set a new standard.
Planescape – reading in a game has NEVER been so much fun, and according to Avellone, never will be.
Darklands – it’s easier to list what you couldn’t do in that game than what you could do. It saddens me that a game of that caliber won’t be made again, but hey, who needs gameplay when you can look at shiny next-generation graphics? m i rite?
XCOM – The king of turn-based gameplay. If you haven’t played it, stop reading this crap and go play it right now.
And finally, Prelude to Darkness, a brilliant indie game that nobody played:
Prelude to Darkness featured an original, very detailed setting, great TB combat system, multi-solution quests, branching main quest, and many innovative design elements. That was the game that inspired me the most. It has shown me that indie projects can easily compete with and even beat “commercial” games in the gameplay and design departments.
RPS: Of the list, Fallout was the one I was sure of. Not just because of the game’s mechanics, but because what the setting brings to mind is the post-apocalypse model applied to the fantasy/medieval RPG. That is, a society that is collapsing, and has been for some time – and the player is thrown into it. Is that the impression you were aiming at? Why was this interesting to you?
Vince: Yes, I’m a Fallout fan. *waves at Bethesda* As for the other questions, yes, that is the impression we were aiming at. Why is it interesting to us? It adds another layer to the story and overall atmosphere. It makes a setting more alive as the past in post-apocalyptic games is more than a dry background. It gains shape and become an ever-present ghost of what once was. Besides, when societies collapse, it strips people from artificial restrictions of civilization and reverts them to their natural state, which is always fun to explore.
RPS: What’s the problems with the modern RPG? How does Age of Decadence deal with it?
Vince: The problem is simple. Nobody is interested in making dialogue-heavy, turn-based RPGs loaded with meaningful choices and multiple paths. A game like Diablo will always sell more than a game like Planescape: Torment, and games like Torment are much harder to make. So, no publisher is interested in making games like Torment that may or may not sell enough to break even when you can make guaranteed hits like Diablo or Oblivion.
That creates a niche – a market too small for big companies to care about, but big enough for indie developers to play at. Since we can’t match the multi-million budget visuals, we go back to the roots – we focus on gameplay.
RPS: I’ll agree that there’s an unserved demographic there, and while probably not enough to support a megabudget game, it’s enough to support a game. This is as true in the turn-based expansive RPG as it is in any of the other niches which are no longer properly provided by the mainstream (wargames, most flight sims, etc). Do you think we’re going to see more people exploring the space you are? How do you see the future of the indie-RPG? How would you like it to be?
Vince: I see the indie industry exploding and successfully competing with the “commercial” games. If we are lucky, maybe it will even bring some long overdue changes. The publishing system must be changed if we want to see original designs and fresh, risky by definition, ideas. Right now it reminds me of a loan-shark operation. You are a fan of Looking Glass Studio, aren’t you, Kieron? How are they doing, I wonder?
Anyway, the foundation for the indy industry is there: good tools, affordable engines, affordable high-speed internet, powerful digital download delivery methods, etc. Now we need more people willing to go the distance.
Spiderweb Software has been making indie RPGs for years. The graphics can blind 75% of your audience – we don’t want that, do we? – so don’t post any screens. Mount & Blade features the best mounted combat to-date and was made by two people. Escape Velocity Nova, a space trader game, had 6 main story arcs. Six. Main. Story. Arcs. Let’s stop for a second and think about this concept. Silently.
Then we have the aforementioned Prelude to Darkness, Fate, Depths of Peril, Eschalon: Book 1, etc. More games are in development – The Broken Hourglass and Purgatorio are good examples. The indie scene is pretty much alive and kicking, and all signs point to increased growth.
RPS: Okay – the thing which caused that mass-pile in the previous RPS thread was the turn based combat, specifically how it looked. I think there’s a problem in that it becomes more noticeably odd the more graphics effort a developer makes. The videos you’ve been releasing demonstrating the combat have that sense of distance due to sitting back and watching the attacks bounce between character to character – but if you treat them as immobile pieces (like, say, in a hex based game) it doesn’t phase the gamer. Is this a fair analysis? Or am I full of it? If so, why?
Vince: Have you played Silent Storm? Temple of Elemental Evil? Both games featured excellent turn-based combat and great graphics. Detailed 3D models and animations didn’t create any “odd” feelings but made gameplay more enjoyable, as one would expect.
Your comment implies that you’re looking at TB from the “it doesn’t look real” point of view and that’s where you’re mistaken. RPG combat systems, turn-based or real-time, is no more realistic than hit points (do you really think that someone could recover from a two-handed axe blow and continue fighting like nothing happened?), carrying enough junk to fill a warehouse, spells memorization, rechargeable mana, etc. Frozen in time characters patiently taking blows and waiting for their turns are no more odd or weird than RT’s single characters fighting thousands of enemies and destroying entire armies. These mechanics aren’t about realism, they are about fun.
Now, fun is a very subjective concept. Some people think that playing chess is fun. Some people think that playing in traffic is fun. Go figure. So, if tactical chess-like combat filled with “what happens if I do A vs what happens if I do B vs. …” decisions sounds like fun to you, then you won’t find TB odd or slow. If you prefer non-stop, mindless by definition, action requiring nothing but manual dexterity and fast reaction, then RT is your friend.
Most people see turns as a some kind of relic from the days long gone, a throwback to the old days when electricity wasn’t invented yet and computers were powered by candle light. Some morons even compare turns to a pause, but we shall blame the education system for that.
The main difference between turns and pauses, so brilliantly illustrated by XCOM, is that when your turn is over, someone else’s turn starts, and if you didn’t prepare for that, well, mostly likely you are dead and it’s “game over” for you. In RT it’s perfectly acceptable to run toward a door, open it, hit pause, review the situation, pick targets and start kicking ass in an unbelievable but visually pleasing fashion. In XCOM if you open a door when your turn ends, and a hostile character is in the room, you are dead. What you may see as a flaw is actually a quick test of your tactics employed during your turn. If you fail, your character dies. You need to carefully plan your actions and then you’ll have a chance to beat games like XCOM or Jagged Alliance. Only a chance. I played XCOM for 6 months on my first playthrough. I beat Heavenly Sword in a few days. It’s an amazing looking game, but it doesn’t require much brainpower. If you can hold a controller, you can play and beat the game. See the difference?
RPS: Regarding your thorough take on turn based… well, I take your points (and generally agree) but that’s not quite what I was really chasing after. I tend to think most real-time combat in an RPGs can trigger a disconnect as much as a turn-based one – but that’s a slightly different issue. What I was trying to draw a line between is the actual feedback on the actions you’ve ordered – that an animated character taking turns swiping at each other can create that disconnect more than two pieces with no animation just standing by each other, with the game information of attacks being offered in a more symbolic fashion. I’m trying to talk about why some people had that odd response to the video you released, if that makes sense. Do you think the audience just need re-educating of what games can be? Explaining that this system offers so much more to them than a more kinetic presentation would allow?
Vince: Let me ask you one of them rhetorical questions. Is turn-based for everyone? No. Will chess appeal to anyone? No. Casual players prefer to load a game, hit a few buttons and watch their characters kick some ass. They don’t want to play games like XCOM where a single mission can easily take a few hours. Yes, a few hours to kill 20 aliens. Should we be really surprised that in an age of weapons with DPS stats – that’s damage per SECOND – and avg expected kills of 10-15 monsters per minute, spending 2 hours to kill twenty aliens doesn’t sound like fun to some people?
As for the comments in that “let’s laugh at turn-based combat together” article, look at what some guy named Kieron said – “I was fine with the turn-based combat, in terms of it being an indie-game and all…”. See, he was fine with TB combat because it’s an indie game, but if it wasn’t an indie game he probably would have written an angry letter to his congressman or maybe even shot someone. Imagine that.
And yes, I understood what you were chasing after, but I guess I failed to explain my point properly. Let me try again using the most important discovery and technological breakthrough of the century – bullet time. Remember Matrix? The first scene, where that cop points the gun at Trinity and says “English, motherfucker! Do you speak it?”, and Trinity says “my turn lolz”, slowly jumps into the air, hangs there for a few seconds, while the cop blinks, and then kicks him? Tell me with a straight face that when that happened you didn’t stare at the screen with an open mouth but said “I call bullshit! That shit is clearly turn-based and it just done ruined my suspension of disbelief!” Tell me that, and being a gentleman, I’ll admit that you have a point.
Now, let’s go back to the responses to that article and take a look at the points your audience made:
“I’d rather puke a lung, to be honest. It would probably be more fun.”
“I am a discerning gamer of the modern age. I demand heads that smush like rotten melons, over then top rag doll death animations and screams recorded live from Nike sweatshops.”
“They took their combat model from Bookworm Adventure. Snore!”
“This is for those times when you want to sit back in your chair and only click the mouse once every 10 minutes.”
“Taking turns fighting may be something “classic” and “niche” audience, but it’s “niche” for a reason, people are looking to new things, and while rolling dice worked for pen and paper, we don’t have to do that anymore and for most people, it’s just not all that fun. Real time is just more immersive for most that want to deal with something that feels more like a real world, not a jumble of numbers and calculations on screen, the illusion is maintained with it off screen, happening in real time while people move and fire freely aiming where they want, when they want, how they want.”
“Wow, I will never play a game like that, ever. I loathe turn-based games, which is the main reason why I refuse to play any Final Fantasy game. It takes me straight out of the immersion of a game when everyone lines up and takes TURNS swiping at each other. Give me something that involves my skill. I absolutely hate it when my hit chance relies on some random dice roll. That is pure and total BS.”
When you have time, Kieron, how about writing an article explaining the difference between RPGs and shooters to your audience? Or maybe an article mentioning that the first computer games were real-time, not turn-based, and disputing the popular opinion that RT is more advanced than TB? I mean, it’s nice that your site tries to attract morons and makes them feel at home, but shouldn’t you be educating them too? It wouldn’t take much to double their IQs, so if you want, I can give you a hand there.
RPS: Okay – Some of your answers seem genuinely angry, or at least frustrated. Who are you most angry at? Are you worried about alienating people who would be interested in your game by showing that, or do you think that your real audience at the people who would empathise and completely understand it? Or do you just not care either way, and would rather speak your mind?
Vince: I’m a big fan of the “honest and blunt” approach. An internet reader has a right to visit a game site and read “Did Oblivion really suck or what?” or “Molyneux has gotta be on drugs!”, don’t you think? Instead every journalist pretends that Oblivion was a 10/10 brilliant masterpiece, that Molyneux isn’t a lying old kook, and that Dungeon Siege wasn’t a screensaver. Then Chris Taylor says that he’s making Space Siege even simpler and everyone nods in agreement: Right on, man! It’s about time someone makes a game for the amputees. BRA-VO!
And no, I don’t really care who’d think what and how my comments would affect sales. I’m making this game on a bold assumption that there are some people out there who are interested in complex games that aren’t made for retards. Btw, did I mention that I was the editor of RPG Codex for 4 years? Perhaps you’ve read my Oblivion review and other critically acclaimed articles/interviews? Now you probably understand where I’m coming from a bit better.
Overall, I’ve witnessed the trend from simple graphics-amazing gameplay to amazing graphics-simple gameplay. Can’t say I’m too happy about it. Take X-COM for example:
1994: It took 7 people to make X-COM: UFO Defense. Two guys who did both design and programming, 2 artists, 2 music/sound guys and a project manager.
1996: It took over 30 people to make a “more of the same” sequel. Now we have 4 assistant producers, 12 artists, 6 level designers, etc.
1997, XCOM: Apocalypse, a game that kinda sucked. Over 50 people team. 5 sound guys. 21 artists. An army of level designers. We even have a brand manager now. Good times are about to roll.
2001: X-COM: Enforcer or Say Goodbye to the Series. Great job managing the brand, assholes.
Do you see my point? I mean, what are the odds of seeing games of X-COM or Darklands caliber again? Let’s end the interview with your own thoughts about the state of the gaming industry. *passes the microphone to Kieron and opens a bag of popcorn…
RPS: From the mainstream industry as is? Not a chance in hell, unless the industry crashes in flames and we begat a new mainstream on a completely different basis. In terms of an indie dev? Hell, yeah. As you point out, it took 7 people to make X-COM – and I was following the Gollops all the way through the eighties, and love what they did with even fewer people (I don’t really have a favourite game of all time – I’m against it in principle – but if I’m asked, I normally mention the Gollop’s Chaos). There’s
indie teams working with that number of people. Why can’t they produce something similarly brilliant? They’re not any less talented. They require an infrastructure – which is building – and an attitude change in gamers – which will follow when there’s games that walk it like they talk it.
(I’ll stress that I’m taking “Caliber” to be a literal case of “Sharing the same qualities that made UFO and Darklands great”. I think the mainstream industry has had successes in completely different areas. I also disagree that those reasons are as easily dismissed as shallow as you do – but I am and always have been a generalist in my interests in games, including just about everything.)
In really short: Will there ever be a game of X-com or Darklands caliber again? That ball’s in your court. Play it.
Thanks for your time.
Age of Decadence will be released when it’s done. That’ll probably be this Fall.
01/02/2008 at 16:18 rob says:
What an incredibly polite interview.
01/02/2008 at 16:23 Ohle says:
VD, you communist, go back to Russia! :)
Good interview, and nice to see this mildly opinionated fellow get some screen time.
01/02/2008 at 16:26 VDweller says:
Hey Tom, long time no see. How are tricks?
01/02/2008 at 16:27 twb says:
Best. Interview. Ever. Seriously, that’s some fantastically unrepressed Speakers’ Corner craziness in there. “Weller” has obviously put so much of himself into this thing that he’s beyond rationality.
And now I’m going to buy his game. Obsession should be rewarded.
01/02/2008 at 16:35 Meat Circus says:
He’s brilliant. FACT.
Can we keep him please, Mummy RPS? I promise to feed him and not let him crap on the comments thread.
Regardless of wrongness or otherwise, I always admire somebody who finds things to get fired about.
Rant on, melonfarmer.
01/02/2008 at 16:39 Kieron Gillen says:
Twb: You remind me to add the ETA to it. It’s a done-when-it’s-done thing, but is probably around Fall.
KG
01/02/2008 at 16:55 Phoenix says:
What an arrogant [Man - RPS censorship Ed]. Being passionate is one thing. Insulting everyone who thinks differently is another.
01/02/2008 at 16:55 Butler` says:
Rofl – that’s the most entertaining interview I think I’ve ever read. What a legend.
Unfortunately, I still think he’s the kind of guy that would argue that “CS is for retards”; a point of view that only the uninitiated would hold.
01/02/2008 at 16:57 Filipe says:
Good to see a candid interview. While I don’t agree with all the points, it’s always nice to see some honesty.
01/02/2008 at 16:59 twb says:
That’s a lot sooner than I expected to see it appear. In all seriousness, a six-man indie team bringing a content-heavy 3-D CRPG to market at all is a huge (possibly unprecedented) event, and I applaud them for every bit of vitriolic obsession they bring.
Although I would note that Darklands had pseudo real time combat. So there.
01/02/2008 at 17:02 VDweller says:
@Butler:
“…I still think he’s the kind of guy that would argue that “CS is for retards””
Nope. I would only argue that it doesn’t belong in RPGs.
@ Phoenix:
“What an arrogant piece of shit. Being passionate is one thing. Insulting everyone who thinks differently is another.”
The irony here is obvious.
01/02/2008 at 17:03 Dinger says:
Awesome.
That’s cool. Remember some teacher in your youth who told you that writing was about “finding your inner voice.” S/he was wrong. Nobody cares about your inner voice.
Ideally, you make games (or rock and roll) because you believe they are “worth sharing”: that others will find value in it. If you’re making an indie game, you sure as heck better love it yourself, and want to play it, at least up to the point it hits beta.
I’m not sure TB will catch fire, but he’s right that it allows for more natural pacing of the action: You can have a 4-hour-long (in simulated time) battle and not worry about players getting fatigued from the epic experience. But the bit about Trinity in the Matrix constitutes the ravings of a madman. No, we didn’t scream “Oh my God! That’s Turn-Based!”, because it wasn’t. On the other hand, we didn’t sit back and say, “she’s interacting naturally with the environment,” because the point was that she was not.
In other words, “realism” is an illusion, but some illusions are more believable than others.
01/02/2008 at 17:03 davidAlpha says:
Very nice to see that someone can get so passionate about RPG’s. Make sure your game has a “windowed” option Mr Weller.
01/02/2008 at 17:06 Schadenfreude says:
Nice to see someone else who likes Darklands as much as I do (Seriously, if you haven’t played it then get ye to your DosBOX).
01/02/2008 at 17:22 Meat Circus says:
In other words, “realism” is an illusion, but some illusions are more believable than others.
I’m not sure I like the way you have made that an absolute. Which illusions are most believable is largely cultural.
Gaming is about the suspension of disbelief. There’s no reason that turn-based combat need be any more troublesome for belief-suspension than any action-RPG mechanic.
It’s just that an entire generation of gamers culturally have lost their familiarity with this particular suspension because turn-based RPGs became unfashionable.
Now, as it happens, the original video didn’t bother me because it was turn-based, it bothered me because it was laughably polite. Lacking in any kind of punch, of aggression…
I mean, the videos for Penny Arcade Adventures: OtRSPoD look ace, despite being turn-based, whereas decadence just looks a bit silly.
If I were them, I’d find a way to turn up the silly-polite factor a notch and make it a game marketing feature.
Claiming it’s ‘ironic’ might be a way to lure an unsuspecting follower of fashion who might otherwise not touch such a desperately outre game mechanic with a shitty stick.
01/02/2008 at 17:31 mujadaddy says:
++ to “a six-man indie team bringing a content-heavy 3-D CRPG to market at all is a huge (possibly unprecedented) event, and I applaud them for every bit of vitriolic obsession they bring.”
There are people out there who want content, and don’t look down their noses at turn-based interaction.
However, I also agree with this: “the original video didn’t bother me because it was turn-based, it bothered me because it was laughably polite. Lacking in any kind of punch, of aggression…” — I think that Final Fantasy VII had a good indication of “turn-based pausing” but some disagree and hated it. They probably would dislike AoD’s combat even more.
01/02/2008 at 17:34 Meat Circus says:
Also, can we get some kind of official rule that being GRATUITOUSLY RUDE to Kieron always wins double points in RPS interviews?
01/02/2008 at 17:35 Nallen says:
The way he lashes out at every criticism reminds me of the last Jack Thompson interview I read. Perhaps he should spend some time considering the fact that playing CoD4 and enjoying it doesn’t have to mean you have the IQ of a jug of water. We didn’t come and say he’s a half comatos physical incompetent because he doesn’t champion twitch shooters.
That said, I don’t think he needs to apologise on any level for making the game the way he wants (that’s said as a statement of opinion not some patronising attempt at ‘letting him off’ for being rude) but I don’t see why he can’t explain himself by detailing what that video didn’t show and putting it in to the wider context of the games interactive nuances, (see how I avoided saying gameplay, huh?), and validating what he saw as the merits of that style.
Instead the impression I got was he’d rather shout “it’s slow because it’s complex, morons” and “you kids just don’t get it” at us, the stupefied population of the Internet. We know why UFO was good, we all played it (I hope). We also know why that trailer didn’t appeal; it was, taken as something of its own merit, in no wider context flat out dull and uninspiring. Perhaps if he feels it was criticism unfairly aimed at him because of the indie nature of his game he should give the Duke Nukem trailer thread a once over.
I think in the age of portal saying a game looks dull because it’s deep in some what ridiculous. As for the matrix analogy, perhaps if his trailer had just delivered one of the most iconic moments of genre redefining footage seen in a decade he wouldn’t be getting panned.
01/02/2008 at 17:41 VDweller says:
“Nallen says:
The way he lashes out at every criticism…”
Every criticism?
For the record, I agree that the animations look too “polite” and lack impact. It was a mistake which we may not be able to fix now, unfortunately.
I thought I clearly indicated in the interview (see the quotes) what kind of comments I “lashes out at”. No?
01/02/2008 at 17:43 Okami says:
I still don’t believe the bullshit about RPGs having to be turn based. If I want to play turn based games, I play strategy or tactics games. Heroes, Fantasy Wars, Armageddon Empire, Master of Magic, Age of Wonders, etc…
What I’d like to see (and what Mass Effect was trying to do) is a deep role playing game (unique NPCs with personalities, large explorable world, choices that have consequences) with a really good action combat system. Baldur’s Gate meets Severance.
Turn Based is fine, really. But I really can’t stand those “OMFG if it isn’t TB it’s no RPG!!”" purists.
I’ve got a soft spot for indies and at first I liked Vince. But when he started raging against the readers comments, I started to dislike him.
Has anybody ever explained the difference between RPGs and tactic games to you?
Most turn based RPGs are about three to five characters fighting thousands of enemies and destroying entire armies. They are just doing it turn by turn.
01/02/2008 at 17:47 VDweller says:
You guys know how to read?
“Okami says:
I still don’t believe the bullshit about RPGs having to be turn based.”
Where does it say that? There were and are many great real-time RPGs. Dungeon Master, Darklands, Gothic, Bloodlines, etc.
“I’ve got a soft spot for indies and at first I liked Vince. But when he started raging against the readers comments, I started to dislike him.”
Did you actually read those comments?
“Has anybody ever explained the difference between RPGs and tactic games to you?”
Are you saying RPGs can’t be tactical?
01/02/2008 at 17:47 ExcitingJeff says:
There is literally nothing more exciting than a Roman-themed turn-based RPG. I am salivating in anticipation, and I can’t even COMPREHEND someone who thinks it sounds stupid.
01/02/2008 at 17:48 davidAlpha says:
your name should be ExcitedJeff
01/02/2008 at 17:49 twb says:
mujadaddy — agreed that the combat lacks a certain viscerality. In fact, from watching the demo reel again, I realized that I couldn’t tell the difference between an actor dodging and an actor getting hit. A lack of visual cues (blood sprays, little red numbers floating up, etc.) and a blandness in the “hit” animations do that, I think.
On the other hand, some of the animations are very good, very exaggerated (and in this sort of game they have to be exaggerated, in the same way that a theatre stage is not a television screen), so I think this is a matter of tweaking.
As far as I’m concerned (or at least as I’m hoping), do some rework on the animations, add a few particle fountains, foley in the sound effects and all’s bob for that.
But, let’s face facts, people — as long as we wax rhapsodic about Dwarf Fortress and Geneforge, do we have any room to complain about model animation?
01/02/2008 at 17:51 chesh says:
@Butler
How about “CS is for idiot-savants”? ;)
That said, what a great interview. I really want to play this game now, even though I’m ashamed to admit I really don’t have any experience with any of the games mentioned.
01/02/2008 at 17:51 Kieron Gillen says:
twb: The point I tried to put was that less convincing animation is more distracting than no animation.
KG
01/02/2008 at 17:53 Zell says:
That was kind of condescending. Anger is more interesting when it’s zest for something. This seemed to be mostly about how stupid everyone is. I’d have liked to see Kieron call bullshit once or twice.
01/02/2008 at 18:02 Ohle says:
Right… I think that if anything should be addressed in the combat, it’s the animations. There’s nothing inherently wrong with turn-based combat, but as Kieron said, the original video was a bit too “You cut me! That’s not very nice. Here, I shall cut you in return!” But in the end, it’s not excitement in combat that these guys are going for… if it were a more mainstream title, you’d see a ten-second epic fight animation play out, with flips and blocks and all that jazz, and then see the “you hit centurion for 2 points of damage.”
01/02/2008 at 18:02 mujadaddy says:
@twb: “a matter of tweaking.” agree.
…methinks VDweller (sounds like a level boss, no? :D ) needs a drink :)
01/02/2008 at 18:08 twb says:
Kieron — That’s absolutely true, and I suppose that mentioning DF’s purely abstract interface is an unfair comparison to both games. Certainly an Armageddon Empires (say) or a Darwinia becomes immersive because of, not in spite of, its iconic nature.
Nonetheless, I’m willing to give AoD a pass on some visual elements just because the developer is obviously punching far, far above its weight. It’s totally insane.
01/02/2008 at 18:09 malkav11 says:
Personally, I’d like working links to Prelude to Darkness and The Broken Hourglass. The first one goes to their site, where they have a “download this free” link that goes to megaupload which then informs you that the link is invalid, and a download page with a “1.6″ version (demo? Full? doesn’t say) link that’s also dead. And I can’t tell for sure but it doesn’t look like the apparently free full version is on any major file repository. Or a 1.6 patch, for that matter.
And the Broken Hourglass link plain doesn’t work.
01/02/2008 at 18:12 Janek says:
Malkav: There’s working PtD links on the forum. The first Megaupload link given definitely works.
01/02/2008 at 18:16 VDweller says:
Zero-Sum, Prelude to Darkness’ developer, is out of business, hence the megaupload link:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B4OWJFO0
It’s a full game. The latest version tends to crash a lot, but if you can handle that, you’ll find an outstanding RPG there.
Not sure why TBH site is down, but here is a recent (two days ago) interview at GameBanshee:
http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/thebrokenhourglass1.php
01/02/2008 at 18:26 Gnarf says:
mujadaddy: VDweller doesn’t sound quite as much as a level boss as, say, Vault Dweller.
The bit about Dungeon Siege is very good, btw. Very correct. I am going to agree with it a lot.
01/02/2008 at 18:29 mujadaddy says:
“VDweller doesn’t sound quite as much as a level boss as, say, Vault Dweller.”
Oh, you youngsters with your spaces in Names of Things…
01/02/2008 at 18:34 malkav11 says:
Thanks for the links. Downloading Prelude to Darkness now…can’t say for sure when I’ll get stuck into it, my schedule and plate full of games being what they are, but hopefully soon.
01/02/2008 at 18:34 Okami says:
@VDweller: No, I’m not saying that. But neither do they have to be. A game can have FPS combat (Bloodlines) and still be an RPG, it can have very deep tactical combat and still be an RPG. It’s just that the combat isn’t the defining part of an RPG.
Yes, I’ve read the comments and I cringed at quite a lot of them. So, the whole anger is understandable, but the comment about FPSs and RPGs still had a very arrogant ring to it…
Maybe I’m a bit oversensitive, because I’m an RPG developer myself. When it became clear that we would use Baldur’s Gate style RTS combat mechanics and not TB based ones, our fans started ranting and raving on our boards.
Every day I check the forums (I don’t know why I even bother) there’s another complexity nazi raving about the good old times of yore, when RPGs were something you had to put work in and couldn’t just enjoy.
I’m just sick of the elitism displayed by other hardcore RPG players. I write “other” because I consider myself a hardcore RPG player myself and I just don’t want to play those old, slow and cumbersome games anymore.
Too many designers (and fans) have the misconception that bad UI somehow makes for deep and complex gameplay. We need more buttons and more stats!!
No, we don’t!
We need story and character development and branching story paths, interesting missions, believable NPCs and beautifull worlds that we can explore and discover.
The funniest part, for me at least, is when those hardcore RPG players start listing their favorite RPGs which included none of the above, they were just glorified excel spread sheets with an infinite amount of randomly generated monsters you’d kill in an endless array of turn based combats (I’m looking at you: Bard’s Tale, Might&Magic, Wizardry, early Ultimas, etc..).
EDIT: I’m actually looking forward to Age of Decadence, by the way. The whole setting has me hooked and I can enjoy turn based combat, even if I don’t really like it in my RPGs… Just wanted to make that clear.
And I don’t really dislike Vince because of his comments. It’s just that he lost a few faction points with me. Stupid foreign languages and my inability to exactly express myself in them…
01/02/2008 at 18:35 Elhoim says:
@”“VDweller doesn’t sound quite as much as a level boss as, say, Vault Dweller.”
Oh, you youngsters with your spaces in Names of Things…”
Besides, VDweller is just in the 8 char limit. Perfect for old school.
01/02/2008 at 18:40 Okami says:
EDIT: There seems to be a problem with the EDIT function.. I just double posted…
01/02/2008 at 18:45 nobody says:
@Okami
“Too many designers (and fans) have the misconception that bad UI somehow makes for deep and complex gameplay. We need more buttons and more stats!!”
More buttons or stats does not mean bad or worse UI. Neither does turnbased combat. And no one asked for more games with bad UI, either. I really wonder where this came from.
01/02/2008 at 18:56 Jives says:
Turn based games are good fun and all, but jesus that guys a tit. I like the way he completely misunderstood/ignored the questions about the video and ranted about XCOM instead
01/02/2008 at 18:58 Pace says:
Is that all we can get from the name VDweller? VD? VD?!? I think if my initials were VD I’d find a different username. Not a great way to introduce yourself to the ladies at the bar either. “Hey, I’m Vince but you can call me VD”. Or, “uh oh, here comes ol’ Venereal Disease.”
(hey, if he can insult us, surely we can fire back a bit??)
01/02/2008 at 19:01 Section8 says:
Great interview. There’s nothing really revealing here for someone who has been following the game for a long time, but I love the fact that this actually sounds like an interaction between a couple of strong personalities – a great change from the copy pasted press release responses and such we seem to see everywhere else.
It seems all the major players elsewhere in game development/media are about causing no offense to anyone and trying to offer something to everyone. Vince comes out and talks about how he sees RPGs and how that dictates the sort of game he’s making, in no uncertain terms.
And he’s right about the vast majority of action games. As someone who has no prejudices against any type of game, and someone used to favour FPSs above all else, I’m horribly disappointed that too many games require little effort or patience, just time. I think one of the best games I’ve played in recent years has been N by Metanet, simply because I get so butthurt by it every time I play. I would not be at all surprised to see the police show up at my door on a domestic violence call, given the screaming obscenities I hurl at this inanimate object that wrongs me so, yet compels me to keep coming back.
Halo 3 and Bioshock on the other hand? Meh. I ended up reading plot spoilers since the only thing compelling me to play either was “to see how it ends”.
But I can see why we get games like that. Not everyone is a seasoned gamer who misspent their entire youth playing everything under the sun, and not everyone wants to be challenged. I think predominantly, gamer expectations are for a cinematic experience that is interactive enough to get the ego-wank of being part of it all rather than just observing.
Is that wrong? Not necessarily, but it shouldn’t negate all other preferences simply because it’s more profitable, and it saddens me whenever I see message board posts espousing a point of view that basically amounts to “I don’t like , they should make it more like everything else.” Apparently that which makes me sad makes Vince angry, and good on him for arcing up about it.
Anyway, long story short. Good interview guys. :D
01/02/2008 at 19:02 mujadaddy says:
Pace — you moron. No one thought of “VD” but you. say it with me “Vee-dweller” like some denizen of the dark places.
back@Elhoim: I miscounted, otherwise I’d have brought up the 8-character-ness, too. I saw that name & was immediately brought back to skimming my little brothers’ Nintendo Powers with the game walkthroughs and pics of every flavor of enemy…
01/02/2008 at 19:21 Homunculus says:
That segued into a wonderfully refreshing blast of invective; like a spearmint tornado to the face. The existence of an ever-widening niche for games containing nuanced choices and consequences (yawning chasm by now, though, I think) can’t be in doubt.
Personally, I blame Jim’s woefully misunderstood graphics are great Devil’s Advocate of yore.
01/02/2008 at 19:21 Section8 says:
Also:
That’s all well and good, but where’s the game? I’m not going to begrudge your opinion, because I think you’ve made a pretty decent summation of some key RPG features, but I don’t think you can ignore some kind of balance with gameplay components. It certainly doesn’t need the “glorified spreadsheet” bias of early RPGs, but I don’t think anyone benefits from Baldur’s Gate style combat because it mainly exists as a gap filler. You need look no further than Planescape: Torment as a game that satisfies every criteria of what you’re after – and as a game that would have been better off without the BG style combat. Arguably it would have been better off without combat at all.
I definitely agree that RPGs should not have tactical combat as a necessity, but I think they need a worthwhile gameplay component. Tactical combat does a pretty good job at satisfying that need. It interacts well with a statistically defined character, and at its heart is a problem solving exercise – a concept very much in line with the key elements of RPGs.
But really, give me anything. I love tactical RPGs, I love games like Bloodlines or System Shock 2, I’d play an RPG rhythm game, driving game, interactive fiction, etc. Just give me some gameplay component, and not the pointless time sink that Baldur’s Gate/KOTOR/etc represent.
01/02/2008 at 19:30 dhex says:
i don’t know if i’m going to like the game, but i am going to buy it.
“Then Chris Taylor says that he’s making Space Siege even simpler and everyone nods in agreement: Right on, man! It’s about time someone makes a game for the amputees.”
01/02/2008 at 19:46 Phoenix says:
It’s interesting how much kinder and gentler the RPS commentators are towards VDweller than any other game-creator despite the man being more abrasive than David Jaffe and Denis Dyack put together.
Maybe it has something do with the guy responding and actually reading the comments. Just a thought.
01/02/2008 at 19:59 MEOW says:
I think this Weller geezer is a gem. I like these outspoken designers. At least they’re not just knocking out games to put big numbers on graphs that the suits can feel proud of. I’ll take Romeros over the alternative any day.
Face it, Mr/Mrs RPS. You love interviews like this! What’s more boring than a dev replying with 1 line stock answers? what’s more exciting than a rabid, angry game-dev? They’re Gold. Pure Gold!
On another point: I’m really glad someone ELSE played Escape Velocity Nova! What a great game. There’s been a lot of guff over a game called Transcendence in the indie crowd recently. Whilst it is a a good, fun game. I basically see it as EVN crossed with Nethack.
01/02/2008 at 21:14 Brokenbroll says:
All FPS games are the same, and easier to design than RPGs.
There is no difference between Metroid Prime, Far Cry, and Serious Sam, and they were far easier to design than Wizardry.
Planescape:Torment is the best game ever, because it has a Terry Brooks level story.
Only morons play and design action games. The real intelligent folk play RPGS. Like Might and Magic.
All shooting games are easy to make, Vince could make them in his sleep. They all play the same.
Vince can also out do Nintendo at platformers, as only idiots make those, and Vince is no idiot. His views of the world are absolutely right, and cannot be questioned, unless you want to see him launch into a whining rant about how dumb you are, and how very right he is.
Its too bad, I very much wanted to play your game. Had I acquired it before finding out what close minded know-it-all you were, I could have overlooked that and just enjoyed the product. Now, I doubt I could ever play it without hearing you, as voiced by Shawn Elliot’s Ralphie character, crying in the background about how great it is.
01/02/2008 at 21:17 Mike says:
Many people seem to be missing one of the core points of RPGs when calling for “visceral action based combat”.
The whole idea is that you’re playing a character in the game, and the player’s personal skill in action combat games should not factor one bit into whether or not your RPG avatar is a killing machine or a puny weakling. This IMO is the whole point of turn based combat generally being a requirement- your own ability to run circles around an enemy and fight them effectively shouldn’t matter if your character is supposed to be a wimpy first level Mage who can barely shoot a small fireball from his/her fingers. Having the Halo champion of the world behind the controls should not magically give this character the reflexes of Gilgamesh, just as a high level warrior should be a fast, agile and powerful killing machine whether said Halo champion is behind the control, or an elderly near-blind man with carpal tunnel syndrome.
01/02/2008 at 21:28 VDweller says:
That’s pretty much a fact. Disagree? Present your arguments.
I neither said nor implied that.
It was a very lengthy post for a generic “you suck” statement. You pretended that I said something I didn’t, got really mad, and informed me that I’ve lost a customer.
Do you have any actual points you’d like to make or discuss, or are you pretty much done here?
01/02/2008 at 21:32 Starwars says:
“Now, I doubt I could ever play it without hearing you, as voiced by Shawn Elliot’s Ralphie character, crying in the background about how great it is.”
And to add to VDs above comment… After following AoDs development for quite some time, I actually think VD is pretty much the opposite. He’s very careful about making any grand claims about the game, I actually think he’s being to harsh on himself a lot of the time, and I’ve seen many other AoD followers say the same.
And I’d suggest reading the interview again and see what he actually says, and not letting your imagination run wild.
01/02/2008 at 21:35 Okami says:
@nobody: I got carried a bit away there, I guess. It’s just that after two years of reading through fan suggestios (and I use this term in the loosest sense) on our message boards I’m really geting a bit touchy, when it comes to design issues in RPGs…
The last few paragraphs were just me ranting about others ranting, which is a bit stupid and very off topic. It was just that some of Vince’s comments (and his general attitude) are too close to the snobby rpg elite that sometimes manage to take some of the fun out of my job. Though I can respect him a lot more, than the ungratefull whelps in our forum.
And I stand by my point, that a lot of onscreen options at any time makes for bad UI, which makes for bad gameplay. There’s a lot to learn from console developers, who have to really streamline their interfaces.
EDIT: THough surely not from their inventroy systems. They’re usually horrible!
01/02/2008 at 21:38 Okami says:
@Brokenbroll: Have you even read the interview? He made no such claims! You don’t have to like what he’s saying, but at least stick to the facts!
01/02/2008 at 21:46 Volrath says:
I don’t know, I’ve always considered streamlining to be a synonym for dumbing stuff down.
01/02/2008 at 21:54 VDweller says:
That was in response to: “…Give me something that involves my skill. I absolutely hate it when my hit chance relies on some random dice roll. That is pure and total BS.”
First, players’ skills belong in shooters, not in RPGs. Second, anyone who understands RPGs also understands that while dice rolls are random, they are merely modifiers applied to skills and that there is a huge difference between skilled and unskilled characters.
Bloodlines, for example, had excellent skill-based gameplay. I played a gunslinger and was very amused reading “guns are useless” reviews, showing that many reviewers tried to play the game as a shooter without taking skills into account.
Purely out of curiosity, if your fans are ranting and raving, demanding TB combat, why are you making a RT game?
Mind if I ask what forums?
01/02/2008 at 22:00 Gimli says:
This interview got almost as good as the Mike Wilson vs John Romero thing.
As far as X-COM goes, I’ve spent a fair bit of time a few months ago trying to get a good picture of the history of Mythos Games. While even after spending a lot of time going through 70 pages worth of Google Groups, many interviews etc. I only know bits and pieces of the story, it seems that there is a lot more to the whole story than people think. To be a bit more specific, the part about Apocalypse and the part about Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge seem like there’s more to the stories of their development than meets the eye. Maybe some day I’ll be able to get Mr. Gollop to do an interview and we’ll find out what exactly happened. Thankfully, I finally found out where he is now, I hope he won’t disappear again.
@VDweller: I’m curious about what you think should have been done with X-COM.
01/02/2008 at 22:14 Stick says:
@Mike:
For argument’s sake, since I’ve got nothing better to do…
In that scenario, you are still using your own skills. It’s just applied math over twitch. (“My wimpy L1 fireball won’t be enough to break the thingummy. I must use remaining action points to retreat.”)
I don’t think RPGs are defined by a lack of hand/eye coordination requirement. (E.g, Deus Ex and Vampire: Bloodlines don’t qualify – there’s both character and player skill involved.)
Story, options and choices… neither of these preclude a game where timing matters.
I like turn-based tactics and strategies. But I don’t see the necessity of role-playing meaning “chess with pieces that LEVEL”.
(As a contrasting aside: nor do I see the necessity of FPS “skills” meaning “sniping accuracy and
speed exploitsadvanced movement”. See: TF2 forum bickering galore.)01/02/2008 at 22:23 Dinger says:
It’s a little surreal, like the scooter commercials CNN keeps punishing me with for something called a “Smart Bergman”. I always think there’s a “Derek” before it. Who are these soccer players and what do they want with me?
“FPS” means “First-Person Shooter”. RPG = “Role-Playing Game”. FPS gets its kick from the “First-Person” part. I’m sorry to revisit previous tirades, but FPS refers to a design feature (errr, some would say a “mechanic”): The player experiences the game from the first-person perspective, and shoots thing. “RPG”, on the other hand, addresses the game from the player’s perspective: the player plays a role.
So we can comfortably conclude that FPS and RPG are categorically different ways of describing game phenomena that sometimes overlap. Therefore, the argument that “An RPG is more difficult to develop for than an FPS” is inherently false by a category error. Unless you insist that leveling is inherent in RPGs, then I’d be obligated to gut you.
But heck, when are we talking here, anyway? The Roman Empire in the second century? One of those awesome periods with a rapid succession of emperors, a helluva lot of parties, and any amount of perversions? Or is it really decadent, by the sixth century, so we can expect Boethius to have translated Aristotle’s logic works?
Yeah, totally awesome! Any good Latin tit-bits we might run into?
01/02/2008 at 22:29 Meat Circus says:
Mr Dweller, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability. However, you’ve talked big, and I’ve really become interested in this game now, so you’d better not disappoint. Or I’ll say that you smell of wee. And you’ll be so devastated you’ll find yourself seeking solace in Fallout 3.
Does anyone know why “Planescape: Torment” can’t be on Steam?
01/02/2008 at 22:33 Chris R says:
“First, players’ skills belong in shooters, not in RPGs. Second, anyone who understands RPGs also understands that while dice rolls are random, they are merely modifiers applied to skills and that there is a huge difference between skilled and unskilled characters.”
Why can’t a player’s skills be a part of the RPG experience as well? It’s like saying, “It’s always been like this, so that’s the way it’s going to be.” Why can’t we push the boundaries and come up with something new that has the best of both genres?
I’d love to see an RPG that stopped relying on random dice rolls for combat. I’m thinking along the lines of an RPG that played like Stalker, but was set in more of a swords’n'magic environment. Don’t give me “To-Hit” stats, or “Chance to Block” stats, let my skill alone determine if my sword blow will decapitate my enemy. I’m not talking about “Critical hit chance”, I’m talking about my skill enabling me to impale a foe through the heart or gut and kill him instantly. It’s not about a higher “DPS” sword or anything like that, I want to be able to one hit an enemy if I’m skilled enough to be able to do so. Why don’t we have this option in RPG’s yet? It seems like it alway ends up being “2X or 4X damage from Critical hit!” or some rubbish. I want to play a game where, if I’m skilled enough, I can one hit my enemies, like the Spartans in the movie 300, where King Leo is out front killing one Persian after another with his sword and spear. I want to play a game where I can actually DO that. Why wouldn’t that work in an RPG?
**EDIT***
Forgot to mention Dark Messiah was a step in the right direction, but not perfect. Being able to sneak up on orcs and goblins and stab them in the back, or kicking them into the spiked traps, or off cliffs….. more of that please. Dark Messiah had its flaws, but the combat was extremely fun. I’ve played through some of the areas 5 times, and each time it was a new experience.
01/02/2008 at 22:37 fluffy bunny says:
“First, players’ skills belong in shooters, not in RPGs.”
How very untrue. Ever played Avencast?
01/02/2008 at 22:42 Zhirzzh says:
@Dinger
You play a role in every game ever made. In Doom, you play the role of a space marine. What would you use to separate RPGs from every other game? Unlike FPS games, you can’t really take your cue for what RPGs are from the name.
01/02/2008 at 22:43 Jimi Hendrix says:
“Why can’t a player’s skills be a part of the RPG experience as well? It’s like saying, “It’s always been like this, so that’s the way it’s going to be.” Why can’t we push the boundaries and come up with something new that has the best of both genres?”
Wouldnt be a true RPG then, and you say why shouldnt player skill be a part of the experience? oh my so I should be able to make a diplomatic medic who could exterminate an entire city with my l337 clicking skills? oh it would look good i mean everything you say impaling people beheading them, but its ultimately ridiculous proposition sounds more like you want that eye candy in.
01/02/2008 at 22:47 Stick says:
@Chris R:
Because we are entirely too defined by our tabletop wargaming tradition and its time-honoured abstractions?
I agree with you. More hybrids of all flavours.
(Dark Messiah has some of the combat you’re asking for, except you unlock the more lethal sword swings as you go.)
01/02/2008 at 22:51 Leeks! says:
That was… great. Just great.
Granted, he lost some of my sympathy when he told me that I wasn’t, in fact, a person but rather three retards stapled together. Still, that’s not so different from what I got in public school.
I only wish that a major game developer would come unhinged like that during an interview. Good show keeping your head about you, Kieron.
Definitely buying the game now.
01/02/2008 at 23:00 Chris R says:
@Stick,
OF COURSE! How could I have forgotten Dark Messiah!!! Thank you for reminding me. I made an edit to my post above.
@Jimi,
Eye candy has nothing to do with it. I just want the game to ALLOW me to impale, behead, gut… basically deliver a “one-hit kill” to an enemy if I’m skilled enough. Graphics have nothing to do with it. A true sword master would be able to tear through lesser skilled foes with ease (See the movie 300, and what the Spartans are doing to the Persians). Why don’t we have that in an RPG yet? That’s my question.
*EDIT*
Also, @ Jimi, Why would it cease to be a true RPG if you only added more realistic combat? I don’t understand that comment at all. Taking away “to hit” and “to block” chances and making it more realistic and based on skill is a good thing, why would it suddenly not be a true RPG if those changes were made?
01/02/2008 at 23:01 Jae Armstrong says:
I’m almost certainly mad for avoiding both camps, but I’m still hoping that Laser Squad Nemesis’s phase-based combat will be embraced by the wider community. Futilely hoping, probably.
Oh, and this interview has sold AoD to me. Wasn’t particularly interested before, as the Roman Era bores me to death most of the time, but I’m definitely going to give it a chance now.
01/02/2008 at 23:08 Dinger says:
Oooh. Good point: So you play a role in every game. So why do we call some games “Role-Playing Games?”
—And I’m sorry, Kieron, but it all comes down to terminology for me. To paraphrase my boy Harry, “RPG legetai pollachos”—
Some games involve “role playing” as a central concern. And here’s the problem that Mr. Dweller has with “mainstream” RPGs like Oblivion: you don’t play a role, you’re shoe-horned into a script. It reminds me of a book I read when I was a kid, which, ironically, is cited on rpg.net: You are the Stainless Steel Rat. It was a spoof on the “Choose your own adventure” series, and any choice you made had the same result.
Mr. Harrison was making fun of a basic contradiction: an RPG works because the imagination of the players is paired against the imagination of the DM, and thus the results will always be unique. In a scripted environment, nothing can be unique, and “Role-Playing” is an illusion.
But a reasonable illusion is what people gun for. Ultima IV had the “If you’re bad, we’re cutting you off” nonsense. Chivalry is Dead had an interpersonal scoring system (and tons and tons of dialog). So, if “RPG” has any meaning beyond “A game that puts the player in the shoes of one of its characters”, it’s going to be “…and where the player’s interpretation of that character has an palpable effect on the narrative.”
The problem is that it’s expensive.
01/02/2008 at 23:21 Fatting says:
I think I’m in love.
No, really now. Vince is really dedicated to the advancement of the proper cRPG. Fight on, good sir.
Looking forward to the game.
01/02/2008 at 23:22 VDweller says:
The arcade game? Yes. What about it?
From an interview with Avencast developers:
“As it turned out, our quest for a better combat system took us to the beat ‘em up game genre. … “
01/02/2008 at 23:25 John Walker says:
Martin – I believe Planescape is stuck in some hideous conflict-of-ownership limbo, that means every attempt to re-publish it results in misery and death.
I want to stress again, for the record, that my original post was teasing the politeness of the combat, and not criticising the game, since I’ve never played it. I recognise that it probably came across as a negative post for someone making the game. But hell, it seemed to work out ok for exposure! Also, my “one centurian at a time” joke is still very funny.
I don’t really appreciate having this described as encouraging stupid readers. But I like a man with passion and anger in his eyes. The game had better be good now.
01/02/2008 at 23:31 Coyote says:
I laughed, I cried, I cheered you both on in this interview. Probably the most hysterical and awesome piece of gaming journalism I’ve seen this year.
Incidentally… there was a pretty hardcore-esque real-time combat 3D RPG released last fall called “Depths of Peril.” Except, IMO, it took a bit more brain-power and a more frantic pace to be able to beat. I would have thought it would be a bigger hit amongst the hardcore crowd. But it hasn’t gained nearly the attention that the very retro, turn-based Eschalon: Book 1 has received.
Now, the difference may be chalked up to having better marketing, or a more polished look. And it may be that the Diablo-esque combat of DoP didn’t mesh well with a strategic / dynamic world core of the game. There could be a lot of reasons for the difference in attention (I’m not privy to knowledge of sales).
BUT — it sounds to me like being able to stand out by having the turn-based combat that is despised by the mainstream (who are well-served by the mainstream game industry, by definition) is a better path than trying to make something designed to appeal to mainstream tastes. At least Eschalon has found a welcoming audience.
Hopefully Age of Decadence will, too.
01/02/2008 at 23:35 Mike says:
@Stick (and anyone else as I really start rambling here)
What I mean to say is that, in the type of game where you create a specific character with a background and skill set (think Fallout, AD&D, even Jagged Alliance, and etc), it just doesn’t make sense to allow a player’s skill at action games to then trump that character’s own set. Using die rolls or “action points” is not the same in that you receive a near equal amount of said points as whoever you’re fighting, and your character’s Agility or Dexterity or whatever stat then dictates how many points they get, and how much each action uses up. This isn’t the same thing as a player posessing an Ultra-Lazer Gaming Mouse (or whatever they’re called) and lightning fast reflexes that somehow magically posess this character and turn them into a war god, instead you are getting some random chances, and it does require the player’s discretion to use correctly, but that are within the abilities of said character. The math example you described is an example- it DOES require the player to do the thinking, but is still dependent on our hypothetical wimpy mage’s ability to either fire or run away- the speed at which the player him/herself could physically aim, fire, turn, and run (using a FPS setup for argument’s sake) doesn’t come in as a factor, and wouldn’t fit if it did.
I do agree as well with people saying that “RPG” is thrown around alot these days as well. I don’t think EVERY game leaning toward the ability to play the role of a specific character necessarily needs TB combat- Deus Ex and Vampire: Bloodlines (the first half or so of it at least) stand out as games that exceptionally combined either character customization that dictated how the game would be played. In Deus Ex’s case, this to me is NOT the same as designing a character from scratch, as in DE you couldn’t decide if JC Denton was going to be a physically weak but good looking and smart guy, or a big ugly blood-drinking barbarian, or etc, the stats didn’t dictate his character so much as how the game itself was played.
Vampire Bloodlines did the RPG bit better IMO, in that the character you created in the beginning actually reflected their stats and background in the game world. A smart and sexy character could use smarter or more seductive dialogue to finish quests and gain perks, a Malkavian’s dialogue reflected his/her insanity, etc. Compare this to Oblivion, which has quests that simply play on rails, give the same dialogue choices to both a brilliant mage or dumb as a brick warrior, and generally required every quest to be solved by “go here and kill this”. Vampire suddenly did the same thing with the “kill everything” quests around halfway through the game, and really made it a lot less fun to play after 2/3 or so of the way through.
It just seems odd to see games such as Diablo, Titan Quest, Oblivion, and such being labeled staunchly as “RPG” when they’re really just action games with stats and levels. No real characterization or ability to affect anything in the gameworld at all besides completing one quest to the next, similar to beating level after level of a platform game. I don’t mean that they “suck” or anything that drastic (for some reason I get hooked on Titan Quest/Diablo, and really do enjoy Oblivion after a literal 4 gigs worth of mods to change the game mechanics almost completely), but calling them “RPG”s next to Fallout, Planescape Torment, or even Vampire Bloodlines is sort of like putting “Scarface” in the same movie category as “The Godfather” series.
02/02/2008 at 00:19 Zaptrack says:
Dear world.
I hate challenge.
Yes, that’s right. I’m just not very good at this whole game playing thing. For instance, the puzzlein portal that introduced double flings made me uninstall the game.
Specificlly, I hate puzzles. I’m good at straight up shooters (Halo 3) but the instantyou askme to put a roung peg in a round hole I freeze, and uninstall/stop playing the game.
Thus why I love turn based games. It’s litterally IMPOSSIBLE to puta puzzle in, say, fire emblem.
And turn based games require skill. If it’s not against the rules or anything to mention this, find a decent SNES emulator, a ROM of FE5, and a translation patch.
Then bend over.
Just because a game doesn’t require you to run up the wall while shooting at a giant enemy crab while a stereotypical female yells at you to dodge it’s heat seeking missiles and a ninja runs after you doesn’t mean it’s easy.
02/02/2008 at 00:27 Seboss says:
Errr… I think you got the wrong Purgatorio btw.
This one seems the right one to me.
02/02/2008 at 00:30 Stick says:
@Mike: (Ramble alert on my part too)
I hear you. I was mainly – probably – after the point that character skill vs. player skill is never a binary thing. (And that purism on either end of the scale… is less than fun.)
And I agree that the terminology lacks precision. Then again, that happens all over. :)
(“This isn’t jungle-ska-fusion, it’s experimental trip-hop made by bloody jazz musicians!“)
@Dinger:
“The problem is that [including multiple choice is] expensive.”
To me, this is kinda central to the whole discussion. Total player freedom does not exist. Choices are a finite number of flags. Because of finite game-making resources and lack of sentient computers.
How many are necessary before a game qualifies as a proper RPG?
Different people, different thresholds.
Soon as the number’s too low, some people throw fits and start making “It should be easy to include my pet feature!” posts. And then we get zombie kittens and cluttered forums all over.
(Sorry. Think sleepiness is dragging me into Extra Special Obtusity. If there was a point, I’ve most likely made it by now.)
@Zaptrack:
“Just because a game doesn’t require you to run up the wall while shooting at a giant enemy crab while a stereotypical female yells at you to dodge it’s heat seeking missiles and a ninja—”
That’s it. Good night. :)
02/02/2008 at 00:54 nimble says:
Planescape Torment (along with the rest of the Black Isle titles) is on flat-rate game rental service GameTap (in the United States at least; I don’t know if it’s available on their UK service), so digital delivery of it does exist. I don’t know how long ago they struck the deal to get it, so maybe it was before the limbo Walker speaks of, but to add even more to the confusion they list its publisher as Sierra, and it didn’t leave the service with the rest of the Interplay games when GameTap’s agreement with Interplay expired. It’s actually one of the games they seem to be most proud of having on their service, judging by how often the employees name drop it on their forums, and the fact it is one of the titles they chose to record advertisements for.
Speaking of GameTap, and to tie it back into the main topic, they seem to be fairly supportive of indie developers (indie titles have been being added at a rate equal to mainstream titles recently, and been getting equal billing on the ads displayed in the download application), and there have been recent requests on the forums for more RPG titles to be added to the service. Mr. D.Weller may wish to look into the possibility of publishing through GameTap in addition to whatever his other plans are.
02/02/2008 at 01:17 Ricardo the patriot says:
Great interview, basically. Vince certainly has a way with words. Didn’t give all that much insight into the game itself, but that’s fine, there are other places to find that kind of info, like later in my post.
Before anybody nods off before reading the rest of my overly long post, let me re-emphasize: DOWNLOAD PRELUDE TO DARKNESS (it’s free, so you really have no excuse here). Like VDweller said in the interview, it really is brilliant. Probably the most innovative genre-progressing rpg I’ve played in a long time, and it was made in 2002. It’s the perfect game for you British martini-sipping Pc gaming connoisseurs. You will experiences crashes and bizarre bugs (including character’s with pink hair, camera cyclones, and rampant nudism), but none game breaking, I have never had a problem with quest action or dialogue. If you are not a pansy and like RPGs, you will enjoy it.
“But in the end, it’s not excitement in combat that these guys are going for”
Well, I wouldn’t say that. It’s not the same kind of excitement that you get from Ninja Gaiden, but you should see me playing Jagged Alliance 2, man do I work up a sweat.
I guess I can understand people not liking the animations in combat, but whatever, I think they are great, especially for of this style/budget, where the focus is on the gameplay anyway. But hey, my computer can’t run mainstream games newer than 2002 and I have no idea in hell what parallax mapping is. Combat looks polite? Ok, but it beats the hell out of Oblivion’s facial animations, and that game had about forty thousand times the budget.
But I think what really bugs fans of turn based combat is the notion that it is somehow outdated. I would like to see someone argue this. To me, someone only started really to play games in the new millennium AND many of whose favorite games have turnbased combat (omg, paradox), I can name plenty of the advantages of turnbased combat, especially in an rpg. I’m fine with realtime rpgs (I wouldn’t have my Daggerfall any other way) but it seems to me that TB is usually the better system for supporting a player defined character.
Chris R Wrote:
I’d love to see an RPG that stopped relying on random dice rolls for combat. I’m thinking along the lines of an RPG that played like … I want to be able to one hit an enemy if I’m skilled enough to be able to do so. Why don’t we have this option in RPG’s yet? It seems like it alway ends ….I can one hit my enemies, like the Spartans in the movie 300, where King Leo is out front killing one Persian after another with his sword and spear. I want to play a game where I can actually DO that. Why wouldn’t that work in an RPG?…. Jimi, Why would it cease to be a true RPG if you only added more realistic combat? ……. Taking away “to hit” and “to block” chances and making it more realistic and based on skill is a good thing, why would it suddenly not be a true RPG if those changes were made?
Well, how exactly are you defining an rpg? As a game in a fantasy setting? I’ve always categorized rpgs as being about defining a character (or charaters). I’m sure a game where you are King Leo and kill people would be blast, but it wouldn’t make a good rpg. If an rpg is about defining a character, than if I make that slimy Spartan politician as a role, he shouldn’t be able to hold his own against a million Persians, no matter how good I am as a player (I man, am I good). It’s not less realistic necessarily, it’s just a different governming factor.
You know, I’m fine with hybrids, but the more physical player skill/speed/dexterity is involved the less of an rpg it is, just like a shooter would be depreciated by character skill being the governing factor. Could you appreciate Bloodlines as a great shooter? I don’t think I could.
Coyote:
“Incidentally… there was a pretty hardcore-esque real-time combat 3D RPG released last fall called “Depths of Peril.”
I’m pretty sure Vince mentioned it in the interview.
02/02/2008 at 01:27 Ricardo the patriot says:
Shit, I totally forgot to virally market. So anyway, if you haven’t already, check the bottom of the “update” page and discussions at the site and at rpgcodex, that’s where all the good stuff is.
I think it’s funny that this game is refered to as old-school, to me it looks more innovative and “next-gen” than all these Mass Effect/Oblivion ass clowns. I like this bad boy:
PRESS PAGE WROTE:
Q: Are there any NPC schedules, reactions to player actions or other elements that help create a dynamic world?
A: The gameworld is very reactive. Everything you do affects someone or something and has consequences. NPCs play specific roles and functions in the gameworld. For example, one of the thieves’ functions is smuggling. That function is connected to other characters and their functions, creating some interesting action-reaction scenarios for players to, well, play with.
If conditions for successful smuggling operations have changed (smugglers are dead or arrested, the shipment hasn’t been sent from another location, corruption among guards has been eliminated, etc), the smuggling stops. And now that affects someone else. Some craftsmen who relied on the supply of cheap ore are out of business. The Merchants’ Guild becomes stronger, expands its trading operations and influence.
If you manage to weaken a faction significantly, another faction will see an opportunity and move in, again, affecting a lot of things. The bigger the rock, the bigger the ripples.
There’s a whole bunch of stuff about how reactive the world is, your choices and there cosequences, the opportunites for all sorts of characters, (how a lore master can try to figure out historical info from conflicting sources, a con artist can disguise him self and forge documents), the faction conflict in the game, the non linearity, all that. To me, that all cries “next gen” a lot more than advanced physics, voice acting and parellax mapping. Ironically, it seems that its the “old-school” indie rpgs that are making the true advances in the genre, because honestly, there hasnt been much innovation going on anywhere else for more than 5 years. Kinda interesting to compare AoD with mainstream rpgs, who, with some recent exceptions, are still stuck in moral absolutism, linear plots, and lack consequence for your actions.
02/02/2008 at 02:49 mystic sika says:
DEREK SMART~!~~!~!~
02/02/2008 at 03:01 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
Well, Mr. Dweller, you’ve certainly got us excited and interested in your game. Don’t disappoint us, as some of us long for a quality RPG experience the likes of which Bethesda has denied us.
That said, Buddha speed, good man. And stay angry! Your anger brings out the best in all of us.
02/02/2008 at 03:07 VDweller says:
:salute:
02/02/2008 at 05:10 James says:
Well, that’s certainly an interview and a half. I personally found Vince to be abrasive in the extreme, but it’s his hobby, and it’s my experience that a person should be allowed one private fanaticism in life (And I do not mean in a pejorative sense), so that’s ok.
I love a good shooter, I really do. But alongside that, I have been an enormous RPG proponent since I first started gaming. I’m personally a little dubious on the idea that RPG’s are harder to develop by default, but since I’ve never designed a game I don’t claim to have an expert opinion on the matter.
If nothing else, the interview introduced me to Darklands, Escape Velocity Nova and Prelude to Darkness, so my thanks for that reference.
As a final note in response to Ricardo’s point: it’s all well and good for a company FAQ to talk about how well their game caters to a dynamic open world, but considering just how many games have gone on about that in the last few years, I’ll hold back my excitement till after I get my hands on the full game. Not doubting the capacity for AoD to deliver, but I’ve long since given up on seeing press releases as concrete testaments to the game.
02/02/2008 at 05:23 Jason says:
I think this Weller geezer is a gem. I like these outspoken designers. At least they’re not just knocking out games to put big numbers on graphs that the suits can feel proud of. I’ll take Romeros over the alternative any day.
Wow, that’s my new favorite backhanded compliment. VD, what’s it like being the John Romero of RPGs?
02/02/2008 at 07:17 Section8 says:
This is fun.
Though my own preference sits toward strategic/tactical choice with character skills deciding the results, mainly because there aren’t enough games satisfying my longing in that area, I’m not averse to games that blur the separation. Bloodlines or System Shock 2 are great examples.
My problem is when character skill/player skill conflict rather than complement one another, which throws the character system all out of whack. For instance, I can’t see why anyone would waste their time trying to level up lockpicking in Oblivion, or need a source of income other than card pairs in Fable.
The most tense moments I’ve had in my recent gaming past were with Wizardry 7. When you’re completely out of spell points, low on stamina and using or throwing whatever random bits of loot you have in your backpack to scrape through, it gets pretty f***ing intense. Especially when you’re about fifty rounds into a bullshit hard fight and you *know* that punk has only got a tiny fraction of his hitpoints left.
Depths of Peril is great. The lot fell on me to give it a spin for a year in review article, and that night wound up like the Civ benders of yore where “one last turn” only became true when sunlight hits you. It’s got everything Diablo 2 had, plus a whole lot more – something the shameless Diablo cloners somehow forget is necessary.
F***ing brilliant. Really. The most recent freeware versions will break your heart with the sheer number of crashes, but it’s worth fighting for. With the exception of the graphics, everything about it is leaps and bounds ahead of the RPGs we get from the big dev houses. A true gem that deserved better than the dim obscurity it fell into.
Anyhow, carry on.
02/02/2008 at 08:01 malkav11 says:
You know a game is obscure when I haven’t heard of it and it’s in my hands-down favorite genre (turn-based RPG. I speak here of Prelude to Darkness.).
Allow me to second the suggestion that VDweller look into getting Age of Decadence onto Gametap. I don’t have any idea what sort of remuneration they offer, so I certainly don’t expect it if the payoff wouldn’t be financially worthwhile. But as a Gametap member with limited funds I’d be so happy.
02/02/2008 at 08:09 Saint Proverbius says:
Dinger,
> In other words, “realism” is an illusion, but some
> illusions are more believable than others.
In real time combat in pretty much every game under the sun, you have two or more enemies standing in the middle of a battle to the death repeatedly smacking/shooting each other with swords. How is that any more believable than turn based? At least turn based allows the player or enemy the opportunity to attack and then seek cover.. You know, like believable reality.
02/02/2008 at 10:30 Stick says:
Semantics, round #4343
Using the definition of RPG as turn-based-tactical game, that is correct. Using – thanks, Dinger – “the player’s interpretation of [the] character has a palpable effect on the narrative”, you are comparing apples with oranges and multiplying them by penguins squared.
And again, first person (like isometric) is a point of view. Not a genre.
02/02/2008 at 11:12 Satsuz says:
This is the best comment thread ever. I don’t know how RPS has managed to wrangle up this many crazies (and I mean that in the best possible way), but I love it. Points and counter-points abound, and posts eviscerated line-by-line when they are not fit enough to survive. Beautiful.
Back on-topic with my 2 cents, though. The whole suspension of disbelief thing is important, but it’s very, very subjective. There is not a game real enough to keep all players’ disbeliefs suspended. That being said, there’s often a general consensus when something passes or fails this aspect. It seems (so far) from the footage alone that AoD has failed. But the great thing about suspension of disbelief is that it can be built-up, you can start credibly and eventually ramp up into something that would normally be rejected. I have faith that this game will pull at least that much off. Most players who are interested enough to give this game a chance won’t care by the time they see the less-than-perfect animations, because they’re likely the type to be absorbed by the game by then.
Of course, this is assumption on my part. I think it’s reasonable, because even some of the worst (by consensus) RPGs or games daring to call themselves as such have pulled this effect off in spite of their other failings (again, by consensus). If they can do it, why not this game?
I could rant on on some of the other sub-topics here, but I’m satisfied going after the one that I felt could use my contribution the most. There are enough walls of text here already.
Vince, you fit in here great. I guess that’s why this isn’t a proper flame-war. Looking forward to the game.
02/02/2008 at 13:43 fluffy bunny says:
“The arcade game? Yes. What about it?
From an interview with Avencast developers:
“As it turned out, our quest for a better combat system took us to the beat ‘em up game genre. … “”
And what they meant with that, of course, was that they got inspiration for that genre when they came up with the (very good) combat system in Avencast. The RPG.
The idea that you can’t have player skill matter in RPGs is just silly. You know, there’s more than one kind of player skill – there’s quite a few mental skills as well (including tactics, strategy, et.c. which play a role in combat). I can play a character that’s dumb as bread in an RPG, but because I’m not (despite what you’ve probably already concluded), he’s not going to do dumb things all the time. So my mental skills influence the game. That’s, in principle, no different from having my aiming skills influence how ranged combat plays out or my timing skills influence melee combat.
For the record, I love turn-based games. Good ones, that is, like Silent Storm and X-Com. If your turn-based combat can rival that of Silent Storm (which is basically the benchmark for turn based tactical RPGs these days), I’m going to be very interested in your game.
Edit: Now you have to excuse me, I’m going to play Mount & Blade. The RPG.
02/02/2008 at 14:01 Nick says:
For the first time in my life, I have a hero.
I eagerly anticipate this game now, thanks RPS! (and, of course, my new hero “Vince”).
(edit)
Oh and nice to see Spiderweb Software get a name check, I really enjoy the Avernum series.. wish 5 would come out for the PC already.. bloody Macs ¬_¬
02/02/2008 at 14:29 VDweller says:
I have more amusing quotes, but let’s try it from a different angle. What makes it an RPG? Because you play a wizard and cast spells?
Examples?
02/02/2008 at 15:23 Cathcart says:
From PS:T, the quest where you need to find a tombstone for the city for some guy in the hive. Higher character intelligence doesn’t make solving the quest any easier, and dumb characters still get the dialogue option to solve it. So it’s completely dependent on the player’s creativity.
Actually PS:T is full of them.
02/02/2008 at 15:47 Dracko says:
About time indie gaming had a human being in the fold. Best of luck to all your projects, present and future.
Good on you for calling out RPS’ members and followers too.
02/02/2008 at 15:52 fluffy bunny says:
“What makes it an RPG? Because you play a wizard and cast spells?”
What makes any RPG an RPG? Avencast is an RPG because you get to develop your character the way you want. You get experience points for solving quests and killing things, and you can invest those in your character. These investments will help decide how your character is able to cope with the challenges he meets along the way. That’s basically the foundation of any RPG.
“Examples?”
Like Cathcart says, PS:T is full of examples, and so is almost any RPG where there’s puzzles. Also, being able to think in tactically in a combat situation is a mental skill. Combat in any tactical RPG will have _your_ tactical skills as the deciding factor, not your character’s intelligence or tactical skills.
02/02/2008 at 15:54 VDweller says:
What creativity?
First you talk to the monument keeper, then you talk to the dead city crier and tell him “hey, what about that monument thingy?”. He agrees and the quest is over. Hardly a quest requiring massive brain power.
02/02/2008 at 16:06 VDweller says:
So, RPG is a game with adjustable stats. Would you like to expand that definition a bit or are you happy with it?
See above.
Like the enchanted armor puzzle in PST? Player’s intelligence is easily bypassed here by introducing an in-game knowledge requirement.
Well, give me an example of tactical wisdom you often bless your characters with.
02/02/2008 at 16:37 Cathcart says:
From the walktrough at gamebanshee.com:
“Along the road here you’ll meet a man called the “Crier of Es-Annon”. He will tell you about the city of Es-Annon and that only a handful of people still weep about its destruction. Tell the Crier that it would be better to construct a monument instead, in order to preserve the memory of the city longer than the lives of the people who still weep for it.
If you go to the Dustmen Monument in the northeast portion of the Hive and speak to a man inside named Death of Names, you can pay him three coppers to inscribe “Es Annon” on the wall (500 experience points). Talk to the crier again and you’ll receive another 500 experience points.”
So there’s no monument line while talking to the Crier, the player must realize on his own that the monument will do for a tombstone. Of course, there’s not a lot of creativity involved in coming up with that, but neither is there a lot of manual dexterity needed to kill some rats, so what’s the difference? Why must one be all character skill, all the time, while the other is allowed player skill from time to time?
Anyway, I was still wrong on my previous post. The rest of the spoiler, again from gamebanshee.com:
“If you want to avoid all the running around and have an intelligence, wisdom, or charisma of 14+, you can convince the crier to give up his mournful lifestyle for 750 experience points.”
That is why I don’t mind some player skill in RPGs, be it manual or intellectual. As long as they don’t make stats irrelevant, and don’t turn all characters into the same best-at-everything god, I’m cool.
02/02/2008 at 17:07 Mr.Moon says:
Where can I find a link to the battle video, please?
EDIT: Found it on youtube
Just finished watching it. Something seems off about the combat or animations, IMO. I don’t know exactly what it is.
I love the battle system for Temple of Elemental Evil, but this one seems way too slow?
I don’t know if it’s the lack of party members, or the animations, or weapon switching seems to be tedious, (unless there is a hot key). Then again I love the whole fantasy setting, and magic system as well, so maybe I am biased.
Are these types of battles going to be frequent? I would rather like to see more meaning or epic battles and less of them.
Also from the video, the different use of weapons, didn’t have enough of a “oophm”.
I don’t know, something is definitely off, but I can’t put my finger on it. I am a fan of turn based games, whether it be something like Temple of Elemental Evil or a console games like Disgaea series. I also just started Fantasy Wars…
Come to think of it, maybe it’s just lack of variety.
I don’t know.
02/02/2008 at 17:13 VDweller says:
Here is a better one:
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/video/AoD_combat2.avi
02/02/2008 at 17:35 Martin says:
John Walker wrote:
Martin – I believe Planescape is stuck in some hideous conflict-of-ownership limbo, that means every attempt to re-publish it results in misery and death.
But I haven’t even commented in this thread, and I’ve never mentioned Planescape anywhere on RPS as I’ve yet to play it (runs and hides from angry mob).
But thanks for the attention. :)
02/02/2008 at 17:40 Almasius says:
[Removed by RPS abuse-o-censor.]
02/02/2008 at 17:50 RPS says:
Tell Vince he’s wrong all you want, but don’t stoop to name-calling to do it. Same goes for anyone on the other side of the fence, natch.
02/02/2008 at 17:53 Jog says:
Hey Vince why don’t you just post a link to ITS forums. You wrote a brilliant post where you explained what RPGs are all about. I just loved that article/post or whatever. It is the best answer to all this player vs character skill…
02/02/2008 at 18:02 malkav11 says:
The thing is, physical player skill the player either has or doesn’t have. If they don’t have enough to deal with a particular situation (assuming it’s necessary to progress), then their only alternative is to plop someone else in front of the game and let them do it. I’ve had to do that myself from time to time. Whereas mental player skill, if lacking, can be substituted for by things like walkthroughs and online help threads.
It would be perfectly possible to remove mental player skill from the equation, by the way. I don’t know why you’d want to, but it’s possible: simply assign minimum stats to choose any given dialogue option and/or perform puzzle solving actions, with high enough intelligence stat simply bypassing the puzzle. For combat, have scripted behaviours that are, again, stat-based. I’m just not sure where the player would have anything to do. :P
02/02/2008 at 18:14 Almasius says:
Okay, here’s a better wording ( Though it seems odd to me that mr VDweller can categorize people as “retards” and that I can’t use the same word level):
It’s hilarious to see an interview that’s supposed to be about a game turn into bashing of rps players and distant arguments like “the definition of rpgs”. I guess when it comes to your game there isn’t much to talk about eh?
When all the publicity stunts to appease the codex crowd, masterpiece praisings and bashing on modern gaming wears thin all there is to look at is a bellow average game that begs me to question “why all this attention”?There are good indie rpg developers that could be getting this spot, such as Taleworlds, The Afterfall team or the New Dawn team.
Let’s just all face it, calling upon Fallout and other *great* games to justify this is madness. To sum it up, the unexistant art direction, poor graphics ( please… a team of 5 should do better. There are teams of 2 that at least make an effort to sell a professional looking game. And money is no excuse. There are free engines such as Nebula and Irrlicht), boring combat, horrendous setting ( “The fall of the roman empire, but with magic and aliens”), horrible design ( There’s a Thieve’s guild and a Fighter’s guild…and you still criticize Oblivion) and poor writing make this unworthy of being mentioned near Fallout and Torment. It’s the way it is.
You clearly have good intentions, but you also clearly failed, months before a release. [Removed.] It takes more than a “codex checklist” to make a good rpg ( let alone a good game) in the first place.It takes inspiration and talent. It was a silly idea to begin with.
I’m also surprised a professional in marketing rambles on like this. Personally, I reccomend containing all this nerd rage and bashing on people that have different tastes than yours. Guys like you and Cleve Blakemore give indie rpgs a bad name.
As a fan of Fallout, I’m inclined to say it’s an atrocity to say it inspired this boring and uninspired game project. I reccomend starting over and wish good luck next time.
02/02/2008 at 18:15 Ricardo the patriot says:
Stick:
Ricardo the Patriot:
the more physical player skill/speed/dexterity is involved the less of an rpg it is, just like a shooter would be depreciated by character skill being the governing factor.
Using the definition of RPG as turn-based-tactical game, that is correct. Using – thanks, Dinger – “the player’s interpretation of [the] character has a palpable effect on the narrative”, you are comparing apples with oranges and multiplying them by penguins squared.
And again, first person (like isometric) is a point of view. Not a genre.
Using “the player’s interpretation of [the] character has a palpable effect on the narrative (Ricardo sez: and/or gameplay)” definition (which is pretty close to what I use, except more pretentious-sounding), well, I think it still works. If your interpretation of your character is one of a guy who blows with firearms, than that player definition is obviously undermined if you can overcome that inability to a significant degree with player skill. It’s really a meaningless definition of character if you can successfully complete a task with similar effectives using a character who is good with guns, and one who is not.
And yes, “first person” is a view, but shooter (3rd person, first person, whatever) is a genre. A game where you shoot things based on your own skill, versus a game where you define a character and his competency in facing challenges is heavily influenced by that definition.
Like Section 8, I have no problem with hybrids like Bloodlines/etc except when player skill and character don’t complement each other well. But I do think that they provide less of an rpg experience (though not necessarily less of a game experience) than more character–skill based rpgs, because your ability to meaningfully define a character is lessened.
James:
As a final note in response to Ricardo’s point: it’s all well and good for a company FAQ to talk about how well their game caters to a dynamic open world, but considering just how many games have gone on about that in the last few years, I’ll hold back my excitement till after I get my hands on the full game. Not doubting the capacity for AoD to deliver, but I’ve long since given up on seeing press releases as concrete testaments to the game.
Fair enough, but I have no reason to doubt the claims of this company. Not only does Vince actually provide an example of the dynamic nature of the world, but in general the company is very open about its development. Go over to the forums and ask for an example like the one given, or about any feature of the game, and you will almost certainly get a developer response. From what I know of Vince, he is not a fan of the empty hype of mainstream, and much of his target audience isn’t either, so when he makes a claim about his game, I feel pretty confident he isn’t just pulling stuff out of his ass, especially when it’s backed by an example. And let’s face it; reactivity on the faction scale is way more interesting than cosmetically “dynamic” NPCs and such.
Section 8:
The most tense moments I’ve had in my recent gaming past were with Wizardry 7…
Yesterday I was trying to ironman the Vietnam mod for JA2 (a superb mod by the way), that was crazy. When you have your favorite merc bleeding out with only a couple of turns left to live, you are getting attacked from multiple sides by Vietcong, you have one doctor slowed by a wound, a sniper with three rounds left, and a guy with a Molotov cocktail who will probably get wasted if he peaks out from cover, that’s some excitement I can’t imagine getting in a real-time game. The tension of choice would just get lost in the franticness of the fighting.
02/02/2008 at 18:33 Ricardo the patriot says:
Almasius
It’s hilarious to see an interview that’s supposed to be about a game turn into bashing of rps players and distant arguments like “the definition of rpgs”. I guess when it comes to your game there isn’t much to talk about eh?
Yeah, good thing there were all those questions about the game mechanics by the interviewer, right?
02/02/2008 at 18:36 Almasius says:
“Almasius
It’s hilarious to see an interview that’s supposed to be about a game turn into bashing of rps players and distant arguments like “the definition of rpgs”. I guess when it comes to your game there isn’t much to talk about eh?”
“Yeah, good thing there were all those questions about the game mechanics by the interviewer, right?”
You mean the ones that were answered rambling about X-com ? Yeah, very enlightening. Simply briliant.
02/02/2008 at 18:37 Jimi Hendrix says:
“It’s hilarious to see an interview that’s supposed to be about a game turn into bashing of rps players and distant arguments like “the definition of rpgs”. I guess when it comes to your game there isn’t much to talk about eh?”
Approximately half the interview was focused on the game and the rest on the state of the RPG genre, he answered the questions quite adequately, even then the questions were focused more on inspration and the team not specifically on the game mechanics.
“boring combat, horrendous setting ( “The fall of the roman empire, but with magic and aliens”), horrible design ”
bull turn based combat is fine, whats demonstrated in the preview videos looked like it could be fun, the setting is what interested me to the game in the first place so again ill call bull on that, and horrible design? multiple choices and consequences, replay value due to different character builds actually affecting the game and the turn based combat which is looking better and better and a developer who actually takes critiscm and can act on it? terrible design shockingly bad!
“Imcompetence is the reason. It takes more than a “codex checklist” to make a good rpg ( let alone a good game) in the first place.It takes inspiration and talent. It was a silly idea to begin with.”
Quite cleary demonstrated was inspiration and talent, and I dont think it was a silly idea and there are a fair few people waiting on the game.
“Personally, I reccomend containing all this nerd rage and bashing on people that have different tastes than yours.”
Get over it, it takes sometimes SECONDS to get over someone insulting your tastes, besides it works both ways which is one of the reasons vince decided to make a RPG he knew he would enjoy because those sorts werent getting made anymore due to whining twitch gamers saying their fans of x series say fallout but then coming up with rubbish like ‘the ‘the combat was rubbish’ ‘the viewpoint was rubbish’ and ‘theres too much text’ even though those were integral to the games in the first place.
02/02/2008 at 18:41 Kieron Gillen says:
Almasius: The difference between the rules of behaviour in a comments thread and the rules of behaviour in an interview are kind of analogous to the difference between someone on stage being offensive and someone in the audience being a disruptive heckler. In other words, we invited Vince to speak his mind in whatever way he wishes. You can think whatever you wish of him, but in the gentlemanly comments thread, you can’t push it that way.
But mostly, everyone’s doing fine. Onwards.
KG
02/02/2008 at 18:42 Ricardo the patriot says:
You mean the ones that were answered rambling about X-com ? Yeah, very enlightening. Simply briliant.
Can you explain how that answer doesn’t fit the question – which had little to do with AoD in specific?
02/02/2008 at 18:52 Almasius says:
When the guy answers questions about his game mechanics talking about X-Com ( a game that has absolutely nothing to do with his, wich isn’t party based because the devs were too lazy to develop it into the game) he isn’t fucking talking about the game.
Look, it’s an utter failure, simply put. every question about the game is answered with “Fallout yada yada” “X-Com yada yada”. This guy clearly has no business into making games. There’s nothing new on the table. He should be at the codex whining.
And if you like this generic romp of a setting then good for you.I don’t.
02/02/2008 at 19:14 Ricardo the patriot says:
When the guy answers questions about his game mechanics talking about X-Com ( a game that has absolutely nothing to do with his, wich isn’t party based because the devs were too lazy to develop it into the game) he isn’t fucking talking about the game.
The point was that the question in question wasn’t about AoD, it was about turn based combat in general. I guess he could have been all “Yeah, turn based is better, but let’s talk about my game now…”, but instead he decided to defend his position with examples. What a weird dude.
If the interview was focused on the gameplay of the game, you might have a point, but it was mostly based around the indutry in general and the reasons why Vince is making the game. There’s plenty of harder info in other interviews, on the forums, and on the site.
If all your conclusions about gameplay are coming from the interview, I dunno, you might want to broaden your base a bit. But it is a little suprising that someone who likes Fallout is so offended by a game like this. Again, check the site, and my second post in this thread, you might find that you like what you see (I’m not talking graphics here). You also might find that the game actually is bringing new design elements to the table and has some pretty interesting ideas.
As for the setting, well, I get that you detest it, but calling it generic is going a little far. I mean, take a look at all those other Roman-esque post apocalyptic fantasy games out there.
02/02/2008 at 19:31 Shai Abraham says:
I don’t get it. Just as this guy is totally against ‘mindless’ RPGs such as Diablo, as he calls them, most people are against ‘dull’ RPGs such as his. Funny he calls the under-development Space Siege a screensaver. I don’t see much interaction in that trailer. Seems like I would have it run on my background while playing another game.
I am personally a fan of both RT and TB RPGs, and Fallout is one of my most favorable games of all time, but I do realize that in this day and age most people would find the game boring. The only difference is that I don’t really give a crap.
Finally, while Decadence may be a fantastic game, the choice of trailer was awful. Maybe that one battle was all about immersion for someone who has reached that part of the game, but you can’t expect a spectator to fall in love with the game by watching a repetitive scene for over a minute – Just in the same way movie trailers show you more than one scene which is just about one thing, whatever it is; dialogue, action, romance, you name it. You need to show variety to gather interest.
02/02/2008 at 19:37 Almasius says:
You take out the magic and aliens thing and it’s a generic fantasy setting in a roman dressing. Silly and even disgusting.
Maybe you are right ( and yes, I’ve been following the game since it was announced, I know enough about it). If there wasn’t all this fuzz about it, I would consider AOD a half decent game…but all this praising is undeserved. It’s an unnoriginal fallout clone that takes away much of what made it’s inspiration great ( the great setting, the innovation and originality, the creative content).
There’s no fucking way this is going to deliver even half of what I see people expecting. And when it doesn’t, this will be one more gravestone in the roleplaying genre burial mound. Hence my distaste for it.
The developers cheapness and arrogance doesn’t inspire simpathy too.
The thing is, all these interviews and coverage should be going to Afterfall, New Dawn or M&B. This game is no big deal. It’s small fish.
02/02/2008 at 19:41 Mr.Moon says:
I know a lot of people think of D2 as mindless, but when you get to the roots of the equations, there is a lot of stats crunching.
My friends and I, would create a variety of builds for pvp, trying to see how much dmg certain skills would do, stacked against certain amount’s of resistances, or how many shots we could get in, when you x amount of faster hit recovery, how fast you can cast or shoot with certain skills, when you have X amount of IAS or FCR, etc etc etc.
Then you have the whole inventory system, which you can fill with charms, which opens up tons of possibilities as well.
Do I fill it with up Grand Skill charms that have 40 vitality, or that have Faster Hit Recovery…or maybe run charms. Or 70/15 charms or 3-20-20 charms…
There is so much variety and customization when making chars in Diablo 2 LOD.
I don’t know why people call it mindless.
02/02/2008 at 19:46 Bubba says:
This guy has no business calling fps players “retarded”. At least they are smart enough to keep away from this. Nothing against TB, but this is justlame. Like one of the fellows pointed out, a 5 man team with 0 budget can do a lot better than this with a modicum of talent and dedication.
[Comment administratorized].
02/02/2008 at 20:01 Volrath says:
You find this to be a generic fantasy setting? When I think of a generic fantasy setting I think of Dungeons&Dragons, not this.
02/02/2008 at 20:02 Mr.Moon says:
Ahhh I saw the video you posted. Much better, as I can actually see what your choosing and why. and the whole AP system as well.
Looks OK now. Though, certain things like when you choose to aim at the head, and kill him while aiming at the head, I would like to see his skull bleed, or even crack open.
There is no magic in this game though right… :(
I am a big fantasy guy.
02/02/2008 at 20:15 Ricardo the patriot says:
Almasius, all this “unoriginal and uninnovative” stuff makes me wonder how much you have actually followed development. It may not be genre-”redefining”, whatever the hell that means, but what other game has the world reactivetly and faction interaction described in my second place? Where else can you actually get somewhere playing a loremaster trying to dig a little truth out of contradicting sources or a con artist forging documents and such? Or levelless charcterwhere similar skills help eachother out through synergies/etc? This sort of stuff is all over the site and both of the forums, so I find it hard to believe that you have been following development closely, and equally hard to believe that you see those features as unnoriginal. They all say “innovation” a lot more than any recent mainstream rpgs. And with his distaste for empty hype, I doubt Vince is just making this stuff up. I dunno, where you see a gravestone for the genre, I see a game that, if it succeeds, might do a little to encourage other indie rpg developers and bring a little progress back to rpgs.
As for other indie rpgs, it’s not like mount and blade is n’t getting any coverage. And what does Afterfall have to show for all its boasted features (which do sound awesome)? Unlike AoD, they haven’t provided any real examples or meaningful screenshots/video.
BUBBA:
“This guy has no business calling fps players “retarded””
Yeah, and he doesn’t.
“Like one of the fellows pointed out, a 5 man team with 0 budget can do a lot better than this with a modicum of talent and dedication”
Who’s done that? I’m genuinely interested. As a game slightly more complex than a tech demo, they obviously have decided to focus on gameplay. Its not like they could compete with all those 20 million dollar games in the graphics department, so they might as well do it in an area where they can. You obviously place a lot of value in graphics, but that’s not what this type of game is about. And personally, I think it looks great,
02/02/2008 at 20:18 Kieron Gillen says:
As a side comment: This is in a series of indie-interviews. I suspect I’ll get to every game that’s been mentioned eventually, if they’re interested in talking. Mount & Blade, especially.
KG
02/02/2008 at 20:20 Ricardo the patriot says:
“You take out the magic and aliens thing and it’s a generic fantasy setting in a roman dressing. Silly and even disgusting.”
It’s a low magic setting with no aliens, I really have no idea where you got that idea. Anyway, would you have prefered generic fantasy or something? What types of rpg settings are you attracted to?
02/02/2008 at 20:28 asdf says:
@mr.moon
the point is that diablo does not involve any role playing. developing your character is an important strategic element, and nobody denies that it might take quite a bit of effort to do it efficiently. still, if you look at it from an rpg point of view it is a rather dull game. the game, while offering a tactically different experience, depending on your character build, will always be the same. there is no way to interact with the world decisively on a level beyond killing its monstrous inhabitants. your player character, while having different abilities, will always do the same, every time you play through the game. his weapons and spells might differ but the way you’re going to solve your quests is already predetermined – there is only one outcome, and only one way to solve each one of them. the character you play remains lifeless, you have no way to determine by yourself what motivates him, what kind of person he is, etc.
of course, all this doesn’t make diablo a bad game. but i’m sure you’ll agree that the game doesn’t really offer much in terms of actual role playing.
02/02/2008 at 20:31 Almasius says:
“Player’s actions influence the how factions end up”
You mean like in Fallout? Yeah, yeah. I would answer to the other pointings but is there really any need? Sorry pal, there’s nothing really original about this game.
M&B is made by two people. 3 artists where hired lately. Compare this fugly looking game to that. There are many other examples if you look for them. Some are shooters and racing games, but the point is that with 2 or 3 artists they get a professional looking game that doesn’t make eyes bleed fountains of blood.
02/02/2008 at 20:33 Volrath says:
There was a loremaster in Fallout?
02/02/2008 at 20:38 Almasius says:
A Loremaster! What an original and incredible class!!! It’s not like it fits in with any other bullshit fantasy setting right!?!?!
02/02/2008 at 20:49 Cathcart says:
God, it’s like arguing with KC. RIP nice, interesting thread.
02/02/2008 at 20:53 VDweller says:
Whoa, and people call *me* angry. Almasius, you have a LOT of issues. If you don’t like the game and think it’s crap, that’s your right. Asking you to prove or explain anything would be rather pointless. I will ask you one question though:
The game was announced in 2004. Since you hate literally everything about it -”the unexistant art direction, poor graphics, boring combat, horrendous setting, horrible design and poor writing” – why do you waste your time following this garbage?
02/02/2008 at 21:02 Shai Abraham says:
@VD
To continue my previous comment, I just realized how ironic the choice of trailer is, considering in your “other life” you are the VP of Sales & Marketing.
02/02/2008 at 21:10 Almasius says:
I will recollect, I’ve been following it for 2 years or more…I had no idea so much time was invested into this ( rolls eyes).
I follow it out of curiosity. I follow FO3 and I think it’s not much worse than this.
02/02/2008 at 21:14 VDweller says:
And? We may argue about the visual aspects of the game, but I don’t think anyone would deny that the game *is* being talked about. No?
Anyway, about the trailer. It was a simple combat video, showing the combat system. Nothing more, nothing less. TB fans, my primary audience, obviously, have seen enough. They’ve seen action points, a good variety of attacks (fast, regular, power, aimed, crowd control), menus functionality, animations, environment, etc. More than enough, I think.
If you’re talking about the AoD video here, you are either jesting with me or really, really have no idea how turn-based combat works.
You missed the point. Watching ToEE combat video, for example, showed me everything I needed to know about combat and get a good idea of how things work. Same here. Surely you realize that there are different implementations of TB combat: Fallout, Silent Storm, ToEE, Eschalon, RoA, etc.
02/02/2008 at 21:28 Shai Abraham says:
I think I have a pretty good grasp of how TB combat works, having played dozens of TB games, but that’s beside the point.
I’m not saying the combat trailer needs to show other aspects of the game, because obviously it was just meant to show combat, but at least some variety, would do it justice. By the way, the second version you posted was much, much better. At least I could see letters and not gibberish-ized text.
Hmm all this talk about TB reminds me that I have yet to beat Planescape: Torment in my base! (I can already see the torches advancing towards me)
02/02/2008 at 21:33 VDweller says:
Showing different scenes and enemies would have been flashier and probably more successful, but wouldn’t have shown combat *gameplay core* to people.
Come on, most of flashy and awesome looking trailers that you’ve seen. How much have they really told you about gameplay? We are trying to do things a bit differently.
You don’t think it’s TB by any chance, do you?
02/02/2008 at 21:40 Shai Abraham says:
I guess I get what you’re saying. But for someone such as I whose first encounter with the game is this video, it’s a little bit of a drawback. This conversation is probably pulling my interest in a better way.
No. Hence the bracketed edit.
02/02/2008 at 22:47 Max says:
I thought this was the best interview ever… the sad thing is He is right!
I don’t know if any of you have played Mass Effect but that game would have made so much more sense WITH OUT the real-time combat, heck it would have made even more sense with out any combat at all.
I hate this DPS crap. Although I also thought the movie was kind of lame, (when I play TB I still want it to be action..)
I love how he lists my favorite games too…X-Com, Fallout, Mount & Blade classics.
02/02/2008 at 23:01 Obonicus says:
What really makes me curious is how turn-based somehow is touted as superior (not saying it isn’t, either) to real-time because it allows for more tactical considerations, and yet in the video that sparked the interview we’re centering this discussion on we hardly see any tactics at all. We see three NPCs standing still and whacking at a player. Essentially, the Fallout model. It’s not like we’re dealing with Silent Storm or JA2 or even Fallout: Tactics-level tactical gameplay.
And conversely, we have people saying that Real-Time means that you’ll stand around trading blows. Which is hardly true; it may be true of Oblivion, but then it was true of Fallout as well.
02/02/2008 at 23:51 Meat Circus says:
Just so as I can catch up, are we now down with ‘Vince’?
He seems like some kind of god amongst men, yet he associates with RPG Codex and No Mutants Allowed people.
I’m so confused.
[comment administratorized]
03/02/2008 at 00:10 Rohit_N says:
As for why Vince seems like a “god amongst men?” Maybe people are finally starting to see the other side of game design, or at least not impulsively wishing those who disagree with them a painful death out of fanboy-rage.
[comment administratorized]
03/02/2008 at 00:30 inhuman says:
“boring combat”
Being a Fallout fan yourself, would you care to elaborate on this and tell us how does it look any different than Fallout’s combat? Really, what’s so different?
“horrendous setting ( “The fall of the roman empire, but with magic and aliens”)”
It is “Inspired by” the fall of Roman Empire. It has nothing to do with our earth’s history nor any Roman Empire in anyway. It’s decades into the aftermath of some big event in a made-up advanced futuristic world which has gone back to a semi-feudal, semi-medieval state after the said event, hence “post-apocalyptic.”
“horrible design ( There’s a Thieve’s guild and a Fighter’s guild…and you still criticize Oblivion)”
And he criticized Oblivion for..? Explain to us, what exactly were the points he criticised in Oblivion. I’m sure not just because the game had a “thieves guild” and a “fighters guild”. Moreover, the guilds in AoD doesn’t have generic names like “thieves guild”, “fighters guild”.
[comment administratorized]
03/02/2008 at 00:31 Janto says:
oohhh, this is all too tempting. I have no raging problem with the turn-based mechanic – I mean, it’s the mindless churn and on-rails experience that’s most repellent to me about Final Fantasy and its ilk. But I do have issues with how it’s implemented in many games. (I’m not immersed in cRPG lore, so there might be games that at least look at these issues.) My main perspective would be as a dice rolling pen’n'paper player and GM.
One of these issues is athleticism, and this is something I’d love to see developed. Running, jumping, diving for cover, basically using superior movement skills to either bypass combat or get to a position of tactical advantage. Now that’s all well and good for ‘proper’ RPGs, where a GM can make up some random nonsense to cover all the stuff not specified. But is it possible in turn based cRPGs? Should we not be able to climb onto tables for +10 damage and higher chances of head hits, or be able to move through rough terrain more easily than our enemies because we’re canny woodsmen and they’re city bred hitmen? What about being able to run, dropping your defense around your ass but letting you get to cover 3 times as fast for the same amount of APs? Roleplay is about imagination, about having choices. (That’s not all it is, ‘course, but it’s an important part.) In order for cRPGs to fulfill some of that same urge, the options need to be expanded so you have a truly dynamic way of interacting with the world. (What I mean by dynamic is everything matters, everything has an effect, and there are so many variables that your genius loremaster could conceivably get the drop on someone and shiv them because she’s able to push them down the stairs or run circles around them, slashing wildly and always moving out of reach, or just climb through a back window and flee into the night.
The other is integrating the ‘story’ elements of the RPG in with the combat. Not just – these are the bandits who kidnapped Tandi, you tried to talk to them and it didn’t work – now KILL! To be honest, in turnbased games there is NO excuse not to allow players to use their intimidate skill, their persuasion skill, etc, at any time. There might be huge penalties, sure. Then again, chopping two of the dude’s buddies in half without breaking a sweat should give pretty hefty bonus to intimidate checks. I guess there should be a mechanical reward – less Dark Side points, people now freak out if you’re a stone killer exterminating everyone they face – but the real reward is player choice. I always wished I could stick-up the NFS dudes in Deus Ex. I mean, what kind of crazy policeman are you anyway where your moral choice is a potentially fatal taser/head beating or a bullet? cRPGs just put you into this autistic Dalek mode in combat, maybe giving you the option to say scripted taunts or something, but it ain’t the same. Or a system that actually takes Monkey Island’s great fencing mechanic and incorporates it into the game, and allows NPCs to attempt to talk to you in combat as well.
On more specific stuff, there’s a lot of interesting ideas in the Age of Decadence stuff floating on this thread, and I’ll certainly check out the actual site for more details.
03/02/2008 at 00:58 Satsuz says:
Meat Circus:
To answer your question, some of us are, some of us obviously aren’t.
The people who aren’t “down with ‘Vince’” would probably place him as fitting with these groups you also look down upon. He’s an incendiary. He has strong, demanding opinions of what makes RPGs good, and he slams the rest. Seems like a match.
People who are “down with ‘Vince’” like him for those reasons, or at least because he is effective/coherent/whatever enough. And he’s actually doing something about it, he’s making a game. That’s the difference.
NMA peoples (and probably RPG Codex ones as well; they’re out of my experience, though) aren’t so bad, they are just pissed and get carried away sometimes. With their genre of choice being in such a state (mainstream-wise); I think they are not only in their rights, but responding appropriately. Less charming/polite/eloquent representatives are just soiling their image. Drastic change requires drastic measures, or something like that.
You can be a cool guy for being an incendiary yourself, Meat Circus. But you need to think twice before you slam something. I follow your comments and you have a history of flinging the easy insults too quickly in your posts. That’s the dark side to all people like you, Vince, NMA folks, and probably the RPG Codex-ians, too (and much of RPS, ‘natch).
EDIT:
Inhuman, Vince’s criticisms of Oblivion were in the linked review up in the interview. Read it, if ya like. I personally find them harsh (even hard to swallow), but ultimately true. Oblivion fails as an RPG in some ways. Still a good game, just mis-labeled, is how I would put it.
03/02/2008 at 01:49 Tamrielo says:
Interesting debate. To respond to a couple of questions that I haven’t seen answered:
VDweller: An RPG is not inherently more difficult or more complex to design than a FPS. The (well-put) comment above that there is an inherent issue in comparing FPS and RPG games due to a type mismatch is a good one, but for the sake of simplicity let’s assume we’re talking about a turn-based tactical RPG and a recent first-person shooter, say, Call of Duty 4.
The RPG requires an astounding amount of writing, a game engine that supports player inputs and executions, a very large amount of varying levels (or, if you prefer, physical areas for a player to explore), and the ability to travel from one of these to the next. A *good* RPG will also include what amounts to a hash file that stores data as the player progresses (dialogue option X was chosen, variable Y is altered) and then accessed later (variable Y is larger than variable Z, therefore this NPC is hostile). Put another way, a good RPG will allow the player to make decisions early on that will affect outcomes or other options later on down the line.
A first-person shooter requires much less writing, but FAR more scripting. The game engine needs to be able to take in player input and compare it to other inputs being put in at the same time– and THIS is the crux of the issue. A turn-based game does not allow for the interruption of other actions as they are occurring, and the difficulty in programming this in is the core of what makes a first-person shooter more difficult to build.
Being able to react to an opponent’s actions is as much a tactical, intelligence-oriented task, it is just melded in a first-person shooter to player skill, forcing a player to both think *and* act simultaneously, and usually in a fairly small timeframe. You need to be smart enough to realize that something is happening, realize (or simply know) what options you have, and then react accordingly.
You commented in the interview: “In RT it’s perfectly acceptable to run toward a door, open it, hit pause, review the situation, pick targets and start kicking ass in an unbelievable but visually pleasing fashion. In XCOM if you open a door when your turn ends, and a hostile character is in the room, you are dead. What you may see as a flaw is actually a quick test of your tactics employed during your turn. If you fail, your character dies.”
Most modern RT games don’t actually let you pause and assess the situation. The screen is usually obscured in such a way as to prevent such exploitative conduct. This is even more true if your opponents are other humans. As for the latter part of the comment, I think saying that “your turn ending” and that the enemy behind the door killing you is “a quick test of your tactics” represents flawed reasoning.
While I’m just as aware as you that, as game designers, we are not pursuing realism to its fullest, I think that we need to strive to create the *illusion* of realism. I should be able to jump away from that door to avoid the bullet, and recover from that tactical error. It’s where the line between tactics and skill blurs. Knowing not to open the door in the first place is a tactical maneuver, but being able to recover from a mistake is a skill-based one. When tactics fail, you have only skill to rely on.
There is a small but vocal contingent of people who claim that failing tactically means you should die– take that to an extreme. There are games where if you have not calculated every single move perfectly right from the start, you have lost. These games are not fun, and designing a game like that would, I feel, be a failure on my part as a designer.
The core difference between the widely-held opinion that Real-Time is more advanced than Turn-Based is the ability to fall back on skill when tactics fail, or put another way, to react on the fly to the actions of another, and being forced to consider how an opponent might react to your actions. I won’t argue that this is a concept espoused widely in modern games–it isn’t, and they’re worse because of it. But claiming that purposefully ignoring a concept like skill-based reaction is better in some way than purposefully ignoring a concept like tactical planning is erroneous.
You might make a great game (and I sincerely hope you do, from one game designer to another), but your “intellectual gameplay” high horse is lamentable, in the same way that the graphics-touting “me too” mentality of much of the current industry is lamentable.
03/02/2008 at 02:33 VDweller says:
I wrote a lengthy post, but decided to replace it with a simple question:
Which game looked more complex and difficult to make to you, Half Life 2 or Bloodlines? If Half-Life 2, please explain.
Sounds complicated. And yet I’ve seen very few people who were having problems beating shooters and handling all that complexity. I’ve seen a LOT of people who couldn’t handle Jagged Alliance, XCOM, and even ToEE. Do you think that Far Cry or Heavenly Sword were equally hard games?
[quote]Most modern RT games don’t actually let you pause and assess the situation.[/quote]
You’ve never heard about Real Time with Pause? Played any Bioware/Obsidian games?
And why do you think that?
Skills are what tactics based on. Removing character’s skills from that equation and using them as override (when tactics fail, skill kick in) make tactics absolutely meaningless.
03/02/2008 at 02:55 Mr.Moon says:
@asdf. Oh yeah, I agree with that. Diablo isn’ t meant to be a “role-playing” experience.
It’s just that a lot of people, complain that there is no tactics behind it. It’s just mindless clicking…which is what I thought he meant.
03/02/2008 at 04:13 malkav11 says:
But, well, when you’re not spending levelup points or choosing your equipment, Diablo’s core gameplay *is* pretty much mindless clicking.
And in my experience there’s a lot more of that than kitting out your character.
03/02/2008 at 04:28 Tamrielo says:
@VDweller
“Which game looked more complex and difficult to make to you, Half Life 2 or Bloodlines? If Half-Life 2, please explain.”
More complex and difficult to make? That depends. I would rate them evenly. Half-Life 2 has an incredibly detailed and functional physics engine, that was designed essentially from the ground up for that game, it had a large amount of player interactivity that stemmed from that physics engine, and had (from what I’ve heard from people who worked on it) an absolutely phenomenal amount of playtesting that made sure the player couldn’t easily break the game despite their ability to literally change the environment around them.
Bloodlines, on the other hand, had a much more detailed and lengthy story, many more direct player options that allowed the player to have agency in the way the story unfolded, and as a result must have been a lot more difficult and complex to write for (I don’t know for sure, having not spoken to any of those developers, but it seems a safe bet that the writing was no small task). The game engine itself, however, the bits and pieces that actually define combat and player movement, are inarguably much less detailed and complex than Half-Life 2.
I think the question is an oversimplification– one game has harder and more complex writing, the other has a game engine that was harder and more complex to build. Taken as a whole, the two games run a reasonable chance of coming out even, although I don’t pretend to know the precise amount of effort that went into each one, I can only infer based on my own experience designing games.
“And yet I’ve seen very few people who were having problems beating shooters and handling all that complexity. I’ve seen a LOT of people who couldn’t handle Jagged Alliance, XCOM, and even ToEE. Do you think that Far Cry or Heavenly Sword were equally hard games?”
No, I don’t. I think that there is a notable lack of tactical consideration that goes into modern games, and that there is a massive amount of skew towards twitch skill and less towards preplanning. My argument was not in favor of modern game design, it was a call for balance between the two.
I disagree that skill (defined as reaction time, ability to think on one’s feet, etc– I know it’s a bad word to use, but we need to use words in order to communicate properly) is what tactics (defined as the ability to prepare for and execute an encounter– see parenthetical above) are based on. I think that representing a skill that an actual player may have, such as shooting a gun, is a functional part of playing the game, but I don’t think that players should be a slave to those statistics. To use a D&D example, a player with a high Wisdom and Listen score should not only know that the door might have someone behind it, but be able to detect the person in question. Would you be a proponent of, when the player clicks on the door to open it, having a message pop up based on the character’s stats saying “You hear movement beyond this door. Proceed?”
If so, then what you have done is make the game function in both directions– the player isn’t penalized for what they themselves might not have thought of (even if their character would have– i.e., they’re not penalized for their character being smarter than they are) and the character is not penalized for the player’s failings. While you certainly *can* penalize the player for not being as smart as their character, you begin to blur the line between role-playing and not– you’re saying that it’s perfectly fine to role-play a character stronger or more dextrous than the player might be in reality, but playing a more *intelligent* character than the player might be doesn’t work.
I think that until that discrepancy is adequately addressed (and you might be doing it, I don’t know– I’m simply making the observation that nearly no one else has), you are better served letting the player override the character with their own abilities rather than slaving them to character statistics that don’t line up properly.
Put another way, if you’re playing D&D with a STR of 8 and an INT of 18, you won’t complain if your DM tells you that you’re too weak to pick something up. On the other hand, if you have a STR of 18 and an INT of 8, you’re likely to become frustrated if your DM informs you that the plan you devised is invalid, since you’re not smart enough to come up with it. Correction– *you* might not, but the average player would. That discrepancy is what needs to be addressed in order to separate ourselves fully from the advantage gained from letting players fall back on their basic reflexes.
I’ve also seen plenty of people who can handle games like XCOM and TOEE, but can’t handle Call of Duty 4 or Half Life 2, because they lack the twitch reflexes. Would you say that CoD4 or HL2 are harder than XCOM and TOEE? No, you wouldn’t. They simply require a different skillset, but– and this is important– neither skillset is superior to the other.
My issue, as stated before, is not with making or lauding a game that supports one of those skillsets over the other, but claiming, as you seem to have by saying, “If you prefer non-stop, mindless by definition, action requiring nothing but manual dexterity and fast reaction, then RT is your friend,” that one skillset is fundamentally superior to the other. If you want to claim that your game is enhancing its players more than others, than you need to admit the equality and necessity of both skillsets.
An example of this I particularly like is the Hitman game series. When played properly, the game is a brilliant blend of tactical preplanning and intelligent maneuvering as well as a highly skill-based game that allows one to recover from plans going awry with grace and aplomb. The Thief series is another prime example of this. Hitman is an over-the-shoulder game, Thief is an FPS, although admittedly light on the S part of that. Both game series are among my favorite games of all time, and both are a blend of tactical preplanning and reflexive adaptation.
“Removing character’s skills from that equation and using them as override (when tactics fail, skill kick in) make tactics absolutely meaningless.”
I agree entirely with this statement. I also agree entirely with the reverse, that removing a player’s skill from the equation and disallowing the player from thinking on their feet, recognizing mistakes and acting to repair them makes the reactive skills of the individual player meaningless.
I would like to reiterate, however– I do not expect (or even want) every single game to incorporate every playstyle. Sometimes I want to engage my reflexes, sometimes I want to engage my planning abilities. Sometimes I want to play chess, sometimes I want to practice martial arts. At no point, however, do I claim that chess is better than martial arts or vice-versa, which is the main point I take issue with here.
03/02/2008 at 04:31 Tamrielo says:
“You’ve never heard about Real Time with Pause? Played any Bioware/Obsidian games?”
I forgot to address this. Yes, I have seen it. I think it is a flawed, exploitable game mechanic and nearly always disable it. It is not, however, flawed enough for me to think the game is bad in any way. A thing can be flawed and still be fantastic. A game that has issues can still be a 10/10, because rational people don’t believe in perfection.
03/02/2008 at 05:20 Meat Circus says:
I don’t deny that I can sometimes be somewhat incendiary. In my defence, I can say that I rarely mean to cause upset, just some heated debate.
And this thread is a shining example of heated debatehood, and is (not coincidentally) one of the best discussions this site has had.
03/02/2008 at 05:36 Saint Proverbius says:
> On the other hand, if you have a STR of 18 and an
> INT of 8, you’re likely to become frustrated if your DM
> informs you that the plan you devised is invalid, since
> you’re not smart enough to come up with it.
That’s the great thing about CRPGs versus P&P RPGs. It’s much easier to guide El Stupidito the Barbarian down appropriate paths for his intelligence level just based on the design. Archibald the Magnificent Mage of Kul’thuhilon would never asked El Stupidito to solve the Riddle of Ten Thousand Cryptograms to get the Tome of Handy Smiting after sizing up his intelligence. If Archibald wants El Stupidito to get the Tome, he’s going to instruct El Stupidito how to beat up the guards, or scale the wall, or something more appropriate to the character’s skills.
Heck, Archibald might not even need the Tome of Handy Smiting to complete the overall goal of the quest arc. Instead, he could send El Stupidito to the Pit of Overstarved Dead to get the Sword of Chopping and Maiming instead, and then go on that way.
You can design games with ways of the character handling things more towards his weaknesses. It’s really a matter of the time you want to spend doing such. Since quests are generally handed out by NPCs, it’s not hard to force paths for characters who aren’t strong enough to bend those bars or smash down those doors *not* to go in ways that might require that.
03/02/2008 at 05:47 Tamrielo says:
@Saint Proverbius
And a truly excellent game will let you adapt your character and change the way they function in order to better handle future trials.
One of the greatest advantages about video games is the sheer amount of “under the hood” considerations that can be made and need not ever cross the player’s mind, be that the constant physics calculations in Half Life, the dynamically tuned respawns, loot distribution, and instance-creation in World of Warcraft, or the dialogue hooks and variables-referencing in Planescape: Torment.
03/02/2008 at 06:33 VDweller is awesome! says:
I love how the rage of being a late 30′s pencil pusher really comes out in this interview. What does it say about a person who resorts to shouting and insults rather than rational arguments and rebuttals?
In his mind he thinks he’s playing the “dashing hero, fighting for what’s right no matter the cost,” when he’s merely coming across like a petulent child. Normally I would support a person taking a chance and putting out a “good” game, whether or not it’s the trendy thing to do at the time. However, his little hissy fit has proven more about him (and his game) than any press release ever could.
03/02/2008 at 07:10 Saint Proverbius says:
> And a truly excellent game will let you adapt your
> character and change the way they function in order
> to better handle future trials.
A truly excellent game wouldn’t allow you to become maxed out in every single possible attribute and skill. As such, there will always be the possibility that the character won’t be the smartest but might be the strongest or vice versa.
PS:T told a pretty nifty story, but it wasn’t the end-all-be-all of the genre. Just because PS:T allowed an INT3 fighter solve brainy puzzles doesn’t mean that all CRPGs have to be that way.
Fallout 2 actually had a few things for exceptionally stupid characters. For example, if the character wasn’t smart enough to get the tanker going, Matt would just get the tanker running for him. While that’s a little simplistic, it does show that it’s possible to change the flow of the game for characters that have low intelligence attributes.
As for physics, I had an idea a few days ago about using physics in a CRPG. You have a nice line of fire calculation, and the “die roll” determines how close you are to that line of fire. The bullet then follows physics, ricochets if it misses and could possibly hit something or someone else. It would make things interesting in tight situations if the character has poor aim. He could even shoot himself depending on the angles of the walls. :)
03/02/2008 at 07:26 Tamrielo says:
“A truly excellent game wouldn’t allow you to become maxed out in every single possible attribute and skill.”
It’s true. Ideally, a game would try to steer people away from min-maxing their characters at all, I think.
I like the idea you have for a physics calculation there. I think you’d have to set things up so that it’s really easy to make minute movements of your character, though, so that you can capitalize (or at least plan for) the chance of ricochets or at least not be frustrated at being killed accidentally by missed shots. It’d be really satisfying, though, if you could get your character to be able to pull off really exciting trick shots, and would add a ton of depth.
03/02/2008 at 08:37 Saint Proverbius says:
Actually, I tend to like the idea of the player killing himself that way. The player knows he’s in a tight space, he should know how well his character can shoot, and he shoul definitely know firing off something like a machine gun would be very bad in that situation.
I’m not a huge fan of overly challenging games personally, but if the player does something really dumb.. Well, I hope he saves often!
As for the trick shot idea, I think the problem with that would be the interface. There would also be the problem of revealing a bit too much of the man behind the curtain, I think. Of course, a turn based game could allow this by simply displaying the odds of hitting an enemy by banking the shot off a wall with an odds adjustment for difficulty. After all, it’s easier to hit a person somewhere than hitting the exact spot on a wall to hit that person.
I don’t think it would be possible with a real time game, though. Real time and projectiles is already complicated enough, with bullets often having to curve on their own to meet a successful roll. I think you can do physics in real time, and rolls in real time(with a little flight path tom foolery), but not both.
03/02/2008 at 08:48 Satsuz says:
Meat Circus:
I think you took my use of the word “incendiary” to be more negative than I meant it to be. No need to defend yourself; it’s a behavior/personality type people can have that (like most things) has positive qualities and negative qualities. Just trying to offer a reminder to avoid the bad bits (and not just to you). Riling people up can be a good thing, sometimes. By the way, I cosign your final comment 100%; in fact I already said something like it up ^there^ somewhere.
Saint Proverbius:
Sounds like a lot of fun; and you’re right, it would definitely have to be turn-based. It would be for shooters what Toribash is to fighting games.
Hmm… I just realized I don’t have anything to add that’s on-topic. Oh well.
03/02/2008 at 11:56 Nick says:
Far Cry was way harder than Xcom 1 towards the end.
Although it wasn’t fun. Stupid Trigens. Wasn’t harder than Terror from the Deep though.
I don’t agree with the apparent knocking of all other games as inferior to RPGs, however. Despite RPGs being my favourite genre.
03/02/2008 at 12:27 inhuman says:
“EDIT:
Inhuman, Vince’s criticisms of Oblivion were in the linked review up in the interview. Read it, if ya like. I personally find them harsh (even hard to swallow), but ultimately true. Oblivion fails as an RPG in some ways. Still a good game, just mis-labeled, is how I would put it.”
I don’t know why this is addressed at me as I neither defended Oblivion or bashed VD’s review of it. My post was addressed at Almasius for his bland criticism about AoD having a thieves and a fighters guild even though VD criticized Oblivion which also has such guilds. As if VD criticized Oblivion just because the game has such guilds, and not because the game fails miserably to utilize any interesting plot surrounding those guilds, especially with the absurdity of being able to join and become the guild-master of every guild which is completely useless.
03/02/2008 at 12:54 Janto says:
To throw more fuel on the fire, one thing that many good FPS (and real time) games put a hell of a lot more effort into is environment. Let’s take three grab-bag examples.
Half-Life 2, Thief 1/2, Rome: Total War. All real time, all doing much more complex and ambitious things with their environment than any cRPG I’ve played.
What Half-Life 2 is doing is directing the viewer’s viewpoint to key areas of interest and creating a very well executed sense of place, as well as providing a whole host of tactical considerations, with chokepoints, wide open spaces where you can be flanked, and so on, in a way that has been carefully calibrated to make things as accessible to players as possible, because it is linear, and there’s nothing more annoying in a linear game to be trying every painted-on door or not have a clue where to go.
Thief also puts a lot of thought into its levels and their environment, but a lot of Thief levels aren’t all that linear and give the player a lot of choices in their tactics and even roleplay. ‘How violent will I be?’ The art direction is great, but it’s really the positioning of light sources and different types of floors that make them interesting, all the hidey-holes you can make, challenging yourself to ghost past a guard or using a rope arrow to ascend into the rafters and then lower yourself down to snatch loot when people’s backs are turned without triggering a trap.
Rome: Total War , and the rest of them, place firm statistical benefits to fighting and moving through all sorts of terrain. The environments aren’t designed in the same way as HL2 and Thief’s are, but they’re a key aspect of the game. Vastly numerically superior forces can be beaten back or even assaulted based on the landscape, the weather, and the maneuver of your troops to exploit the map.
I am aware that chucking a strategy game in there isn’t exactly fair on ‘complexity’ levels, but I think it does show that environmental advantage is not ‘beyond the pale’ of what any RPG should be capable of in terms of adding complexity.
03/02/2008 at 13:02 John P (katsumoto) says:
I’m with Nick. Far Cry is probably the hardest FPS i’ve ever played. Doesn’t come close to Terror From the Deep, though! My proudest moment was completing Enemy Unknown, but I can’t even get anywhere near the end of TFTD. Hardest game ever? Apart from perhaps the Atlantic Accelerator level in Sydnicate!
03/02/2008 at 16:11 Devilyote says:
The tone of this interview and the comments made by VDweller here come off as condescending and hostile intellectual bullying. It’s a lonely world to live in when you imagine everyone around you is stupid, probably even people who would buy your game — because, after all, chances are they’re not educated or critical enough to appreciate the effort and creativity put in. Anyone who disagrees with you must have unshakable proof to back up their claims, or they’re dismissible outright. Hell, we’re not just dealing with video games here, egos are at stake!
Zeal is a quality I believe more game designers should have, and I feel strongly that games in general would benefit from genuine creative passion, but gamers who prefer to kill 20 aliens in two minutes, as opposed to two hours, should have no assumptions made about their character because they prefer reflexive action to strategy.
When Age of Decadence is finished, given all the academic-tinged debate, I expect a phenomenal game to come from this. Theory is one thing, but practice is another; not that it matters, because I’m not interested in the game’s play style. I don’t care for Indian food or country music either. The humanity.
03/02/2008 at 16:22 VDweller says:
I like a good debate and this thread is filled with great discussion seeds. Unfortunately, the format isn’t very discussion-friendly. Anyway…
I expect anyone who would like to join a debate to have something more than a “lol u suck!” opinion to contribute. I’d expect facts, arguments, and thoughts. Do you think I’m being unreasonable here?
03/02/2008 at 16:25 VDweller says:
Btw, just noticed the link at the top:
“Angry RPG developer thinks you’re a moron”
Good one, Kieron. How very sensational.
03/02/2008 at 16:33 Kieron Gillen says:
You should get yourself to a British Curry-house, man.
KG
03/02/2008 at 16:37 VDweller says:
I didn’t mind it, btw, so you didn’t have to change it. As a fellow student of sensationalism I admired the eloquence and provocativeness of it.
*bows
03/02/2008 at 17:25 Alec Meer says:
(That one was me amusing myself, then worrying about it causing more comment-war. Hadn’t seen your post about it until now, as you’d been spam-filtered for some reason. Should be fixed now.)
03/02/2008 at 18:01 gnarr says:
I’m not a huge fan of this sort of game, but I would buy a copy without hesitation if it included a developer’s commentary track recorded by VDweller. If he could keep up the level of vitriol and condescension of this interview, complaining about the intelligence of the games-playing public and moaning about his contribution to the art of gaming being unappreciated, it could be as much fun as watching a Uwe Boll DVD with Director’s Commentary!
(to anyone who hasn’t watched one of Uwe Boll’s movies with director’s commentary, I highly recommend it. Alone in The Dark probably has the best commentary of the ones I’ve seen.)
03/02/2008 at 21:26 Waffles says:
“I expect anyone who would like to join a debate to have something more than a “lol u suck!” opinion to contribute. I’d expect facts, arguments, and thoughts. Do you think I’m being unreasonable here?”
Well, the interview itself seemed to be mostly of the “lol u suck!” variety… I didn’t see many facts backing up the comments about people’s intelligence. If you think “facts, arguments and thoughts” are a reasonable demand, you might want to provide a (positive) example. ;)
But still, anyone who weren’t blinded by Oblivion’s “singleplayer MMO” sandbox scores a few cool points in my book. Wish more people had seen through that when it came out.
03/02/2008 at 22:51 Briosafreak says:
:salute: VD
Best and more thought provocative interview this year, hard to top.
03/02/2008 at 23:03 Captain Rufus says:
I liked the interview.
I absolutely hate most real time RPG and strategy games since they are generally brainless, moronic, and are more like (bad) arcade games with extra grinding.
Considering how many modern gamers decry turn based anything these days I can understand where the guy is coming from.
There is tactics and tension and usage of odds and probabilities in turn based. Your smarts are your skill, not your reaction time. You have the opportunity to THINK, to use all the units at your disposal.
In real time, its your level and how fast you can move about and click a freaking mouse button. There is no time to enjoy the pretty graphics or anything.
In the 40K Dawn of War series I couldn’t tell you what anything does since I never have time to watch any of the combat. Im too busy CLIKING BUTAN to make more massive hordes to win against smaller hordes.
When I play something like Advance Wars when I lose I can generally see where I failed and try a new tactic.
Real time tactics are TWO AND TWO ONLY:
BUILD ORDER/SPEED
OUTNUMBER OPPONENT
Rock on Vince!
03/02/2008 at 23:56 Futile Rhetoric says:
@Tamrielo
You do realise that Bloodlines used the exact same engine as Half-Life 2, right?
No? Oh, okay. Carry on.
04/02/2008 at 00:07 Tamrielo says:
@Futile Rhetoric
Actually, I did. I also know the the engine was *built* during HL2′s development, by Valve. Bloodlines licensed the engine, which (as someone who’s both built an engine from scratch and licensed an existing one) cuts a massive amount of development time and effort off.
My point still stands.
04/02/2008 at 00:35 Futile Rhetoric says:
@Tamrielo
Troika -could- have made their own engine, but didn’t; likewise, Valve could have licensed someone else’s engine like they did for the original Half-Life. You need an engine either way, whether you do it in-house or outsource it. You could (and should) add the work required to make the engine (whether you do it yourself or not) on top of everything else, or you could leave out the engine work altogether, since it adds absolutely nothing to the discussion. I would go for the latter, and I imagine that’s the sort of thing VD had in mind when he chose two games representing the genres in question while running on the same engine.
tl;dr — Troika could have made an engine with double the Awesome of Source, and it would not have changed the discussion an iota.
Your point [is not one I agree with.]
04/02/2008 at 00:57 Anonymousity says:
” So, if tactical chess-like combat filled with “what happens if I do A vs what happens if I do B vs. …” decisions sounds like fun to you, then you won’t find TB odd or slow. If you prefer non-stop, mindless by definition, action requiring nothing but manual dexterity and fast reaction, then RT is your friend. ”
Have you ever played DotA Allstars? It’s not and rpg, but it is one of the most tactical RT experiences you can have with nine other people. Also for those interested in XCom there is a multiplayer mod that lets you pit squad vs squad online or hotseat I can’t remember the website but try googling it and I’m sure you’ll find it, well worth a play.
04/02/2008 at 04:34 Tamrielo says:
@Futile Rhetoric
“You could (and should) add the work required to make the engine (whether you do it yourself or not) on top of everything else, or you could leave out the engine work altogether, since it adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.”
I disagree with this statement. With the exception of MMORPGs, many, MANY RPG designers who are working on the PC license engines, for *precisely* the reason I brought up. Licensing the engine allows you to take a significant amount of work out of the project, thus allowing you to spend an equivalent amount of effort.
The Source engine would exist with or without Bloodlines, it would *not* exist without Half Life 2.
The example brought up was a poor one, in my opinion, because of that. A more fitting comparison would be, say, Oblivion (using the Havok physics engine) and Bioshock (also using Havok physics). In this case, since both games are licensing software and not building that infrastructure specifically to use in their game, you can make the argument that the effort put into Havok is irrelevant to the discussion.
At any rate, my comments about the complexity and difficulty of making Bloodlines versus Half Life 2 are tangential to the debate at hand– while I think we can agree that a comparison between those two is a poor example, my point was that claiming that either FPSes or turn-based RPGs are inherently better than one another on some moral or intellectual scale is erroneous.
My overall point has nothing to do with how difficult (good) games are to make– the answer, more or less regardless of the game, is: they’re very hard to make.
Instead, my point (taken from above) is this:
“My issue, as stated before, is not with making or lauding a game that supports one of those skillsets over the other, but claiming, as you [VDweller] seem to have by saying, “If you prefer non-stop, mindless by definition, action requiring nothing but manual dexterity and fast reaction, then RT is your friend,” that one skillset is fundamentally superior to the other. If you want to claim that your game is enhancing its players more than others, than you need to admit the equality and necessity of both skillsets.”
04/02/2008 at 05:56 Satsuz says:
inhuman:
I must have misunderstood. I thought you hadn’t read the review and wanted to know where Almasius was deriving his [opinion] from. So I told you where it was and offered a quick thought of my own. It wasn’t meant to be an attack on you or anything.
Change of topic:
There’s been an awful lot of talk about Vince’s manners and how/where he crossed the line, but I don’t see him addressing it in any way. Why, Vince? You’ve earned a lot of cred here, but you’d do well to patch up some things here before the bridges you’ve lit fall into the water. Of course, if you really think everything you’ve said is fine, then you’ve disappointed me (and likely many others). As I said earlier, people like you must beware of their own dark side.
04/02/2008 at 06:31 Rabid Bitter Jaded Fallout Fan 6382617 says:
I was one of the many suckered by all the 10/10 Oblivion reviews…and I haven’t bought a single PC game since then. Age of Decadence is going to the first game I’ve bought in 2 years, and I can’t wait.
04/02/2008 at 14:49 KingMob says:
First: Welcome Vince, the David Jaffe of the RPG genre – long may you rant! Sounds like a good game. In my opinion, lay off Vince’s manners, he has the right to rant and rave without taking tender care of his audience’s feelings. Don’t take every comment he makes so personally. Are you a man(woman?) or a marshmallow?
Second: There are no, or very few, 10/10 games in reality, and I think the number of people giving 10/10 review scores is a serious problem. It’s true no game is perfect. So don’t give it a perfect score.
Third: @Captain Rufus – don’t bag on Dawn of War, please. If you want to bag on the RTS genre for being simplistic, be my guest. But you really pulled out an irrelevant example for no apparent reason, and I don’t agree with your statements about the title. Would you (or I!) prefer some kind of turn-based or strategy version of DoW? If you love 40K you’ve got to have imagined this at some point. (Actually Epic 40K was quite good if anyone’s played that). But back on topic. I feel DoW was one of the more strategic examples of the RTS genre, and if you want to bag on an RTS game, pick one that’s not as good, please.
04/02/2008 at 16:16 Janto says:
On a tangent – Prelude to Darkness is ‘smash the computer’ levels of buggered. How anyone has managed to advance in it beyond the earliest scenes is quite beyond me, unless this is just the cursed final build.
Indie posterchild it is not. AoD certainly looks prettier, but will it run smoothly?
04/02/2008 at 18:09 TheLostOne says:
Great interview. Fun to be had all around. Well, except for those that got butthurt about it.
About PtD, different people get different mileage as far as crashes go. I played through most of it on my wife’s computer with only a handful of CTDs. Recently reinstalled it on my gaming PC and I’ve crashed 5 times before leaving the first town.
04/02/2008 at 18:20 nobody says:
PtD – I just recently tried it but put it on hold for now, it crashed every five minutes (apart from the first half hour in the town). Maybe I (we) shoud try an earlier build? It seemed to be worth it.
04/02/2008 at 20:17 SomeRandomGuy says:
A friend of mind linked this interview to me, because he figured I’d like the angry interviewee…and he was right.
Plus, Vince is willing to get in the trenches and slug it out with the anonymous masses, and I admire that. So two points for your game, good sir.
I’ll probably pick this up to take a look at it, because you have piqued my interest with your referencing of the good ol’ games of yore. (You want to talk about sad? I had an interview with one of the of X-Com once, when they were hyping up their (at the time) new game Rebelstar: Tactical Alliance. Of all the game “journalists” on the line I was the ONLY one who knew what X-Com was.)
However, I can tell you what’s wrong with your combat animations. The animations very obviously confine the pieces involved to the grid space, and the attacks lack weight.
By “lacking weight” I refer to the odd phenomenon that occurs in some action movies where 50 attacks exactly alike will land, but the receiving party will show no effects of taking the hits. Then one final attack will land, and the receiver’s head will explode. The only thing that happens to your characters in that AoD video is that whether or not they’re hit, they’ll take a little half-step backwards. Show a visceral difference between hit, damage absorbed by armor hit, and evaded, and I think you’ll have the strange quirk in the combat animations everyone here’s complaining about worked out.
Other than that, I await seeing if you’ve made a worthy game, despite setting the game in a time period I don’t much care for.
04/02/2008 at 20:57 VDweller says:
You’re right, so no arguing here. Yes, the grid was part of the problem and as a result attacks lack impact. We’re aware of it and will try to fix it.
04/02/2008 at 21:17 Champagne O'Leary says:
Plenty and plenty of holes in his argument. He didn’t do very much to endear me at all, I’m afraid, and so I won’t be taking time to point out the obvious flaws in his rant.
04/02/2008 at 21:22 flackon says:
One could also say that Turn Based is for those [people] who need… endless… time… to… think… their… actions.
But then again, he described himself as a Fallout fan, so this kind of [attitude] should be expected.
04/02/2008 at 22:29 Black says:
Oh Champagne, if the flaws are so obvious then why not point them out? Unless, of course, they aren’t so obvious and you have no idea what’s going on, but that’s not likely possibility, right?
04/02/2008 at 23:16 Morbus says:
Hey people, how about some perspective huh? Some people like strategy, others like action, others like true role-playing. This IS true role-play!
Kudos for Iron Tower Studio.
05/02/2008 at 14:20 Jeremy says:
I agree with everything he says, everything … even the IQ part luckily this is the first time I have looked at this site.
90% of the games published anymore are wonderful eye candy. They rock at looking pretty, and pretty much fail every where else. The last RPG I played that I went wow this is a great RPG was Torment. That is just sad, I mean NwN was good but it wasnt great and NwN2 was just another eye candy piece of crap. Oblivion was ok but it wasnt Morrowind. Its time people learn that RPGs != FPS.
Im tired of every new FPS claiming its an RPG because look we have skill points isnt that an RPG. Or even better every idiot claiming that hitting a button fast and running in circles is skill and that being a tactican is for losers.
I look forward to this game, it sounds like the developers are 100% True Blue RPGers.
Now excuse me while I day dream of games like Ultima 4.
05/02/2008 at 14:38 Peter Ebel says:
That article reflects really well on you, Interviewer. That other guy was an asshole though.
06/02/2008 at 09:27 Clicky says:
Heh, there is a comic based on this incident on GUComics.com
06/02/2008 at 14:34 Webb says:
So this is Gladius? Only with slower and more boring combat?
06/02/2008 at 15:52 InternetDude says:
If by “this is Gladius” you mean “it has the word ‘Roman’ somewhere on its website” then sure, it’s totally Gladius. Otherwise – no, not really. Where would you get that silly impression? It’s kind of like saying that an airplane is a boat, only with less ability to go fishing in it. What?
Also, how can you tell the combat will be “more boring”?
06/02/2008 at 21:34 Gylfi.Fenriz. says:
I can’t believe whoever’s going against the Lead-designer Mr. Walker.. Even tho I believe good games can have direct combat system, it goes to show that people also prefer action and immediate enjoyment in every other element of some such game. one is obligated to support this gentleman’s ideas, as it’s basically an invective against a market of business men. The birth of indie-houses, which hopefully in turn will become official software houses (with the sole difference of making cheaper games) is a tremendously positive sign that PC-gaming repulses today’s trends, business standards logics of money-making least risks possible in favor of an interest in pure gameplay depth, it’s a field-choice that a true gamer must support with his life.
From now on We pc gamers will always have to keep more than an eye on the indie-houses. But the message is clear and it’s untouchable: to hell with mass-market and industrial balance sheets: We love videogames and We wanna see them evolve because it’s our passion, we really believe in interaction.
06/02/2008 at 23:37 Champagne O'Leary says:
Oh Champagne, if the flaws are so obvious then why not point them out? Unless, of course, they aren’t so obvious and you have no idea what’s going on, but that’s not likely possibility, right?
Dear Black.
I’d like to point out my post again, where I stated my reason. The horrible, petulant attitude of this man doesn’t warrant me picking through his blind rant. If you agree with me, you’ll see the flaws and if you don’t, you won’t appreciate my views, and this is not worth that.
If I was to say anything, I would point out his uncharming rudeness, and his bizarre desire to damn everything that isn’t his game.
Also, what on earth is he talking about in his point about pausing a realtime game when you open a door?
06/02/2008 at 23:40 Gylfi.Fenriz. says:
I repeat, He might be not right on every head, but he defends gameplay over graphics and silly console crap for casual freaks.
How can anyone who loves serious videogaming not support this idea ?
You disagree with him only cause he’s used an angry and politically uncorrect tone ? What is wrong with you peeps? are you bigots or something ?
06/02/2008 at 23:41 Gylfi.Fenriz. says:
sry repeated post
07/02/2008 at 10:27 Volrath says:
Also, what on earth is he talking about in his point about pausing a realtime game when you open a door?
Have you ever played games like Baldur’s Gate/Icewind Daele/NWN? The Real Time with Pause system creates a sense of command rather than a sense of direct character control. Compare this to a turn based system used in Fallout: I click the shoot button, the character shoots immediately, the opponent lives or dies immediately.
Also the argument that it’s more realistic in a narrow sense is meaningless to me and unattainable anyway, so immediacy and “visceral”-ness wins. As a side issue the balance in RTw/P games may be fundamentally prone to abuse, because every design I’ve seen gets easier the more and more you pause to micromanage, meaning that you’re modulating difficulty by increasing tedium, which is a fatally horrible dynamic.
07/02/2008 at 21:17 Michael says:
The best RPG ever made was Betrayal at Krondor. It had turn based combat, which was as fun as it gets. So, while I would have to play EoD to see how I like their particular brand of TB (it looks too complex), I am definitely keeping an eye out for this game. If the ITS actually manage to achieve what they are shooting for, they may end up creating something truly great.
Best of luck to you, Vince!
09/02/2008 at 00:00 Miles says:
I like turn based combat RPGs, but this guy is more than a bit of a knob.
09/02/2008 at 22:48 Kadayi says:
VDweller
What did you think of the Witcher?
10/02/2008 at 12:17 zhirzzh says:
Kadayi , I doubt he’s posting in the comments anymore, so I’ll just say that he liked it. If you want to ask him about it, it has it’s own thread on AoD’s forum.
10/02/2008 at 19:00 Kadayi says:
Cheers I’ll head there. I’m about to delve into prelude to Darkness on his recommendation, and see if it passes muster.
12/02/2008 at 01:45 Black says:
Burn in heaven fps infidels!
12/02/2008 at 02:15 Ricardo the Patriot says:
Sorry for digging up an old thread, but anyway. What I find funny is that this approach to interviewing is what sells. A lot of you complained that there wasn’t enough about the game itself (in the questions or answers), but hey, there’s already been like 5 (great) interviews talking about gameplay (see the links at the bottom of the wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Decadence). But it seems nobody wants to read intervies about the game mechanics of a game when they see a screenshot with late nineties/early 00′s graphics. On the other hand, when people hear “an indy game developer thinks you are a moron and your favorite games actually suck,” well then you are just so angry and you have to read on. That way, you get threads with over 200 comments and links to the interview and game site spread all over the net. That’s some kick ass marketing right there.
19/02/2008 at 14:25 Ryan Hamilton says:
I basically share all of this person’s preferences when it comes to RPGs. But I have no idea why our anachronistic little crew of guys is incapable of expressing our preferences without throwing out words like “mindless” and “morons” towards anyone who’s ever designed a Halo or, apparently, an RPG with a real-time-with-pause-mechanic. Just because Fallout is objectively the best game of all time doesn’t mean that each of its mechanics is objectively the only possible choice.
27/02/2008 at 12:46 WTFer says:
You know, I pretty much agree with 95% of what Vince said, but if he’s going to have a princess tantrum when people he’s not even marketing to dislike his game, I’m not going to give him my money. Great job on losing a sale. If you acted like that at your VP of Sales position you’d be fired.
27/02/2008 at 22:57 Vince says:
Tantrum? You are surely jesting with me. I commented on some posts and quoted the really stupid ones. Did that offend you and cost me a sale? I’ll have no choice but to learn how to live with it.
09/03/2008 at 19:23 Black says:
Choices and consequences VD, choices and consequences…
24/03/2008 at 15:12 Moraelyn says:
I salute you Vince.
I was brought up on games like XCom, Torment, and Fallout. I love TB because it’s strategy. I get a laugh at these guys who are saying, “TB sucks! I want to use my skillz!” Any monkey can pull a trigger, but monkeys can’t think their way out of a corner. These guys want food for the eyes, not food for the brain.
May you succeed in baking an exceptional pie, and at least break even with it.
02/04/2008 at 10:49 thekdawg says:
Vince is my hero. Any game that rewards you for being a fast mouse clicker proportionately detracts from the strategy and intelligence level of the game.
Action and Real-Time = mutually exclusive to Strategy
Vince is my god, and I shall worship him unto the end of my days.
02/04/2008 at 10:51 thekdawg says:
WTFer says:
“If you acted like that at your VP of Sales position you’d be fired.”
He’d be fired by small minded people, the same kind of people that ruin games for the thinking man today.
17/04/2008 at 22:30 Simon says:
Great Work Vince… Bottom Line The Market Is Flooded With Real time games .. It Takes Guts and Conviction to cater to the Mature Gamers out there that love depth and strategy in their games. I’ve been playing since the days of Commodore 64 and grew up loving Turn Based Games. Although I Own numerous real time titles, I still thoroughly enjoy turn based and there’s precious few of those titles out there. I would advise all of the Developer’s critics to buy the games they like and stop having a go at a brave developer catering to a specific market. Can’t wait to get the game.
29/04/2008 at 17:17 Matti Kuokkanen says:
“In really short: Will there ever be a game of X-com or Darklands caliber again?”
UFO: Extraterrestrials
http://www.matrixgames.com/games/game.asp?gid=342
UFO: Alien Invasion
http://ufoai.sourceforge.net
Do you know what Gary Grigsby (Panzer General, Steel Panthers, does ring any bells?) does nowadays? Still same, but just with TWO other people!
2BY3Games
http://www.2by3games.com
Have a nice day!
29/04/2008 at 17:22 Kieron Gillen says:
Matti: He said Caliber, not clones thereof.
KG
30/04/2008 at 17:31 Matti Kuokkanen says:
*sigh*
Better part of original UFO: Enemy Unknown & X-Com: UFO Defense is cloned from Laser Squad.
Most game ideas have already been used, so refined clones are best we can get. Decadence looks promising, but I bet my head it has something that I’ve seen in other games. Different ways to use weapon: nothing new on that
To further comment about simplicity of computer wargames: that’s the way whole thing got started in the first place! A long time ago, universe student and wargamer Walter Bright got brilliant idea to create computer game based on tabletop wargames. Why? So all the dice rolling and book keeping would be done by the computer, and player wouldn’t need to know all the details about that. And so Empire – Wargame of the Century was born. Maybe it wasn’t the first computer wargame, but it ought to give you idea why whole thing got started.
Bitching about simplicity of games is almost pointless. There have been simple games before (Asteroids anyone?), and there is still high demand for them: simple & fun – enuff said. I play simple games, and some complex ones, with computer & console and without. All can be good, they are just different. All are still done, but high demand for simple digital games makes complex tabletop/computer games bit harder to find. But THEY ARE DONE!
If you’re looking some complex high caliber wargame, where one game turn can take up to full work day, War in the Pacific is among the top.
http://www.matrixgames.com/games/game.asp?gid=351
30/04/2008 at 17:41 Kieron Gillen says:
Matti: I’m an enormous Laser Squad fan, but it’s not the same game as X-COM in any meaningful way. The context, personality and meaning of those battles are fundamentally different. You may as well say I’m the same as my Mum because I contain for her.
And “Caliber” doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with “Originality” anyway.
(I’m not actually entirely disagreeing with you here, by the way, but I think you’re going after the wrong target)
KG
12/05/2008 at 02:43 sean says:
To be honest, i think the turn-based vs real time dilemma goes deeper than that.
For some odd reason, a bunch of semi-to moderately intelligent gamers i’ve talked to seem to hate turn based games with a passion. This always comes down to the fact that they link turn based games with final fantasy (japanese rpgs) and immediately dismiss anyone who plays them as wussy asians.
I’m not talking about idiot gamers here. These are very normal day to day moderately intelligent people who play quite a bit of games.
To be honest, can you really blame them? The only turn based games these days are RTWP(real time with pause). Almost every strategy game that is released is RTS, almost every other type of game is action-fest with eye candy and explosions.
A decade or so has gone by where we’ve educated our gamers to instant gratification, and the net result is that any turn based game that is released gets associated as the dreaded JRPG because only the squinty eyed asians make them.
My advice for AoD, make the starting learning curve very low. Start easy, and slowly nudge the player and train him into a hardcore player bit by bit.
12/05/2008 at 03:41 Albides says:
I don’t think it’s a matter of a desire for instant-gratification, just a matter of different tases. I don’t mind turn-based combat, but let’s at least admit it’s meant to simulate operations happening in real time to make them more manageable.
Chess is just turn-based Total War. And the turn in which you have to decide which mutant to hit in which limb and groin is the same thing as deciding in S.T.A.L.K.E.R which enemy to go for and which part of him you want to hit. One relies more on character skill while another favours player skill. One gives you endless time for deliberation, the other requires a split second decision.
Really, let’s not confuse “tactical” for “deep”. Most turn-based games often involve repeating the same set of tactics ad infinitum. Your warriors hit and absorb damage to protect the frail wizard and thief. Wizards hang back and cast destructive, healing or buffs. Thieves might backstab if you can get the bloody thing to work. Etc. Etc. You curse because your warrior can barely connect and your wizard’s spells fizzle. Rinse. Repeat.
24/05/2008 at 07:33 Shevek says:
The poster above me is hilarious. Tactics to him are choosing which place to aim a gun at. Hell, Fallout had that plus real tactics. He goes on to decry “endless time for deliberation” vs “split second decision”. Jeez, how fun, games so deep you can figure out the right thing to do in a split second.
blah
I used to frequent the Codex a bit in the days gone by. I have just this to say. I hope VD all the best but the sad fact is that all major forms of media, be they music, movies, games, whatever, are going straight down the crapper. This isnt me getting old. This is reality.
I work as an educator. I can say with 100% honesty that kids retain less now. They read less too – alot less. I taught kids the holocaust and tried to bring in Maus… they didnt know how to read a comic book. Lemme say this again… a comic book. (“what are all these bubbles?” “in what order do we read?” “what does oppose mean?”) Hell, these were high school kids.
If kids can’t read a comic, how the hell can they be expected to read a proper adventure or rpg? I was playing this stuff at 13 but these kids would need to be in college before they could master the mysteries of Day of the Tentacle.
When I was young, we had to read these things called manuals with our games. They were often very big and came in separate books. There was little if any “in game help.” Now, things must be streamlined. They must be accessible and intuitive. Hey, it needs to be this way now. People dont read.
I seriously think that if some kid tried to remotely understand even something as limited as character creation for, say, Realms of Arkania, their head would just explode. Boom. Done. Pink Mist.
Ah well, survival of the fittest.
24/05/2008 at 10:02 Albides says:
No, tactics to me is a term who think themselves smarter than the common herd use to refer to manipulating a few characters (or one, in the case of Fallout) into blatant and obvious advantageous positions depending on their class/abilities. Like I said, this usually isn’t terribly deep, but some people like to think so. But I liked how you recapped a few select parts of my post with a scoffing tone. That was nice.
I’m willing to concede there are some games in which turns do make for a deeper tactical experience. X-Com, for example. But I think that’s an entirely different manner of beast to a fantasy RPG, which almost always involves repeating an obvious formula ad nauseum. Especially games like Realms of Arkania.
The poverty of turn-based combat is best demonstrated by Prelude to Darkness, which is fun, but just doesn’t have enough choices to even warrant having turn-based gameplay. You either cast a spell, hit the monster with your sword, or run away while the monster hex by precious hex tries to follow you. I’m sorry, but that’s just neither fun nor “deep”.
And for the record, before you put me into the brainless gamer category, I’m largely indifferent to most FPSs, and really only play RPG games. Personally I wouldn’t be bothered if RPGs didn’t have combat at all. It was almost unnecessary in Planescape: Torment, and it’s certainly not what made it a good game.
I’ll probably buy Age of Decadence. My post wasn’t about how turn-based combat was bad, it was about how turn-based isn’t necessarily deep.
25/05/2008 at 02:22 Albides says:
Edit: Sorry, I don’t normally double post, but I realise I meant Eschalon, not Prelude to Darkness. And the first sentence should read [term those who think themselves smarter than the common herd].
26/05/2008 at 01:48 FhnuZoag says:
I’m a pro-TB guy. I love TB combat in the likes of Exile etc. But looking at the video of Decadence… I’m sorry, but the combat in that sucks.
1. Too slow. A rule of thumb in TB is that the time the player spends deliberating in his own turn must exceed the time the enemy spends in his. All those slow swings is tedious.
2. Lack of feedback. There’s no sense of hitting or missing.
3. Combat is way too static. There is no incentive, it seems, to move your character in combat. This itself reduces choice and makes fighting repetitive dice rolling games. I actually think the Japanese SRPG people have it right, here. Giving people separate movement points and attack opportunities is great to make people move around. Throwing enemies around the board. Flanking, sneaking, and so on.
Albides:
The previous poster could have chosen far worse passages to quote. ‘Chess is just turn based Total War’? Hm.
26/05/2008 at 02:02 Albides says:
Okay, so I was making intentionally provocative statements and managed to get a bite.
Still, I stand by the spirit of the argument. Not everyone who doesn’t want an RPG to turn into a poor man’s chess every time they fight a group of rats is a moron.
26/05/2008 at 02:21 FhnuZoag says:
Well, ok, I accept that. There’s room for both kinds of games.
10/09/2008 at 15:36 loyalist says:
Man this game is going to be awesome to all of you console morons can go die.
31/10/2008 at 05:05 Verner says:
I like how all of the jackasses trying to start a fight left the second somebody replied, and then, on the “other side” of the “debate” another moron appears who then backs off the second somebody retorts.
RPS staff better check the emails.
04/12/2008 at 12:12 Jochen Scheisse says:
Definitely one of the most amusing threads of 2008. Vince knows how to debate, and the internet does too. By debating I mean arguing, and by arguing I mean trying to win a conversation. Good show, I’ll definitely check out AoD anyway.
05/07/2009 at 01:23 rei says:
But which year!
09/08/2009 at 12:53 Hgvt says:
RPGs being harder to make than FPSs ? That’s a good one.
Anyone can write (what is considered as) a relatively decent story, millions of people write and sell books and hundreds of millions of people write stuff. As for gameplay, it should be obvious enough by the number of indie games developed by a few folks or even solo in some cases that copypasting a generic statbased system isn’t exactly hard.
On the other hand, FPSs these days need teams of dozens of people if not hundreds, talented programmers, artists, modelers, scripters, even mapping isn’t so easy in a 3D environment.
I’ll tell you what, don’t take my word for it. Instead, I will believe you ; and now I expect whatever game you’re making to look as good as Crysis, because surely if it doesn’t take that much effort to design a FPS it shouldn’t be a problem for you guys to whip up something as good visually speaking as a 2 years old engine.
Turnbased gameplay being inherently harder than realtime ? RPGs being inherently harder than FPSs ? Face, meets palm again.
The method you choose to use, the kind of game you’re making are completely irrelevant to the difficulty of your game. Look at Final Fantasy for example – turnbased RPG, yet easy enough for any teenager to pick up the pad and get through the games without trouble.
Now, pick Far Cry (1), as you seem to like that one. FPS, but claim you’re getting through this on the hardest difficulty mode by simply “aiming a gun at a guy”, without dying, on your first playthrough and I don’t think anyone who played that game will believe you for a second.
In short, shaking your fist and insulting people and better games won’t make your own game any better ; of course, it *will* generate interest and possibly sales from a number of gamers who pick games not for their fun value but for the controversy they generate. Your commercial background is definitely showing.
13/01/2011 at 03:59 Sir Funk says:
This Vince guy is a real prick. I love turn based RPGs and I can’t believe people would really complain about there being more of them, but unfortunately Vince comes off as a raving lunatic and for someone who is a VP of Sales & Marketing, he should really have a better handle on the idea of public relations.
I look forward to reading more of his “critically acclaimed articles/interviews”. What a joke.
22/01/2011 at 15:34 Vince says:
Raving lunatic because I called some people morons? Are we in the Victorian era perchance?
I can honestly say that I don’t understand the reaction. Kieron and I had a nice chat. Instead of being a politically correct douchebag and trying hard to be liked by everyone, I was open and told him what I thought. The next day the internet exploded:
- OMG! Did you guys hear? Vince was SO ANGRY last night.
- He totally was. He used the M word.
- He did? His career is totally ruined now. He’s worse than Mel Gibson! Who will buy his shitty game now?
- HE SHOULD HAEV KNOWN BETTAR! HE HAS RESPANSIBILITY!!!
- That boy is a raving lunatic! He has no place in a civilized society known as the internets!
Seriously, guys?
02/02/2011 at 19:20 rustinpeace91 says:
This looks awesome!
PLLLEASE make sure there is support for windowed mode though
25/03/2011 at 22:10 mangsy says:
Really late in reading this, but I had to make an account just to give props to Vince. I also read your Oblivion review and thought it was spot on. Appreciated the snarks and also laughed my ass off at the Asshole Physics/AI Something Awful and YouTube links (which I’d seen before, but not in some time). Reminds me of when I accidently spazzed out when playing Oblivion and picked up a stoneware plate (or something equally trivial) in some tavern. All the patrons bumrushed me and I was forced to slaughter them all, except for one main character who could only be knocked unconscious. He would wake up intermittently, every time yelling ” THIEF!!!” Meanwhile, I was busy either massacring guards foolish enough to try and subdue me or making all the corpses around me dry hump each other. One of the funniest gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
Looking forward to Age of Decadence!