Are roleplaying games as a genre dead? Or can it still be saved?

ladymythos

I've been a huge fan of roleplaying-games ever since the pen-and-paper days, where you could beat a big dragon by bribing the dungeon master with pizza. Or a punch in the face. With pizza, once. (don't ask.) Naturally, going into the MMORPG-era was a huge deal for me, and in some ways, it still is. There's just one problem: Is the RPG-genre dying? Or even dead already? We had our first death sentence in the late 80s/early 90s, where we had year after year with mediocre attempts to some sort of RPG at best. It wasn't a fun time. Fortunately, Baldur's Gate came along and revolutionized the whole genre, and computer-RPGs were born again.

Skip ahead to today, and what do we have? No, really. What do we have? I'm not sure anymore. Stats are long gone. Oh, sure, we occasionally get the usual strength, dexterity, constitution etc stuff, but none of that really matters. We still get some skill trees, but they don't matter much either. "Congrats, you leveled up! Now you can... uh... swing your sword sideways. Yay..." We haven't had a 'real' roleplaying-game in many years. I think Mass Effect 1 was one of the latest ones, and even that is mostly an action/adventure-game. Old-school roleplaying? Hardly.

And what about MMORPGs? They should have been the ultimate RPG-experience, and yet... meh. Developers spend years trying to make the best game possible, yet far too many players don't care about levels below max level. Many even openly admit they hate the leveling bit. You would think those were the weirdos who play games they don't like, but sadly, they are the ones who shape the genre these days. It's no coincidence most "RPGs" the last ten, fifteen years have been action-game with the occasional RPG-bits. Witcher? Action game. Dragon Age? Tactical action, with some RPG-bits. It's no more RPG than XCom. Fallout 3 and New Vegas? First person shooters with, you guessed it, the occasional, non-important RPG-bits, though with some nice adventure-bits (exploring on your own etc.)

Heck, look at Neverwinter. It's not just an MMORPGs. It's an MMORPG based on the grandfather of all RPGs. And it's still just an action-game. If even the grandfather of RPGs can't survive as a RPG, what chance to other games have? Oh, sure, there have been some nice attempts. I'm really looking forward to Divinity: Original Sin, but even that isn't a RPG. It's a strategy-RPG at best, with heavy focus on the strategy-bit, and not so much on the RPG-bit other than creating your own character(s).

So what does it take to bring back the good, old days of Eye of the beholder, Lands of lore, Ultima and Might & Magic? Is it even possible anymore? Or should we just face the fact that the whole RPG-genre is dead?

angrysprite

MMO are not role playing games - at least not designed as such, but Virtual Worlds often are. If you want a role-playing virtual world then try Second Life (secondlife-dot-com) - when searching (in-game), rather than using Dungeons and Dragons or D&D as keywords, try "Drow" or "Fae" and you'll find them.

Oh, and once you've tried role play in "SL" - you'll never even passively consider any MMO as being anything near an "RPG" as the genre is supposed to be.

Your welcome.

beckylunatic

I'd say that an MMO can work decently as a sandbox for roleplaying, limited only by the imaginations of players, but the actual foundation of it needs to be simple and linear because of all the people involved. You don't get to make decisions or anything because the outcomes are set, there are no live GMs pulling strings behind the scenes, etc. There can't be multiple outcomes because it has to be the same game and same world for everyone.

Single-player CRPGs can allow multiple paths because they only need to be consistent for you, thus you get to make meaningful decisions. The outcomes are still fixed, but in a few different directions. This genre is pretty neglected. I backed Project Obsidian on Kickstarter but haven't been following updates closely... and I have some inkling they're struggling, possibly due to allowing the project to become too big.

Something like Second Life is the sandbox without the overlay of a quest structure. You get to make your own outcomes because the game doesn't have to try to dictate anything at all.

I guess if you want an actual live GM to try to mess with you, there are still NWN(2) persistent worlds?

ambisinisterr

Pretty much what angrysprite and beckylunatic said.

MMO's have never and never will be an in depth roleplaying game. You can form your own groups of people interested in roleplaying but the storylines in MMO's and the general community will always be lacking. As you pointed out the most players don't care. Which is the main issue.

MMO's need as many players as they can to remain running. As such they have to appeal to as large of an audience as possible. That means sacrifices to the overall challenge and depth to story arcs in order to make sure as many players as possible enjoy the game.

RPG's are not dead, but while you can mold MMO's to be roleplaying games by use of imagination and some elbow grease co-ops will generally be much more focused on aspects we relate to a quality roleplaying game. That doesn't mean Neverwinter or any other MMO can't be a good RPG but it is something you will have to work for.

ladymythos

i know the biggest point towards MMORPGs not being roleplaying-games is that you can't make lasting decisions, but Star Wars: The Old Republic changed all that. It does let you make meaningfull choices that affect the story. Gameplay-wise, there's nothing wrong with old-school roleplaying-systems like, say, Dungeons & Dragons. With dice, THA0, Longswords +1 and all that. So MMORPGs definitely can be roleplaying-games. But if everyone agrees that they aren't, why do we have the RPG in MMORPG in the first place? Why don't we simply call them MMOs, or even MMO action games? (MMOA?)

And yes, most people don't care anymore. I think that's quite sad, but that brings us to the second part of the question in the title: Can the genre be saved? I'm not talking just MMORPGs here, but single-player RPGs too. Is it too late to save the genre? Or are people like me stuck in the past, always hoping for a revival that never comes? I know it's easy to think of me as Miss Negative who refuses to see the good things in life, and always assume the worst. But look at adventure-games. Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, Secret of Monkey Island, Full Throttle, you name it. There were loads of great adventure-games by then (disturbingly many made by Lucasfilm or Lucasart), but the whole genre died. There was a little hope that it could be revived by Telltale with the Tales from Monkey Island and Sam & Max games, but that led to nothing. Now we're left with interactive movies again. While I love The wolf among us", it's not even close to the good, old adventure games. It's just an interactive movie. Jurassic Park? Loved it so much I finished all five episodes in one day, but adventure game? Hardly. It's a movie with a few interactive scenes here and there.

And that's the problem. I loved adventure-games back in the golden days, but the whole genre died. I love roleplaying games, and was sad when the genre died the first time. Adventure-games did get a quick revival, but it was a very short-term thing. Now it's dead for good, and I fear roleplaying-games are heading the same direction.

But where is it going to stop? Is it? I played the new Wolfenstein, and while I loved it, I loved it because it was so unique from modern FPSs. The sad part is it's only "unique" because it dares to be old-school. In that way, even the FPS-genre is dying. Survival horror? Dead. Fighting games? There's Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken and Dead or Alive. That's about it. Four games in the whole genre worth mentioning. Five if you count Marvel vs Capcom, but those are just tag-team matches with three people on each side, and thus not "true" fighting games. Even if it is, we're talking an entire genre consisting of five games.

So again, where is it going to stop? Are genres as we know them dying, and slowly turning into different forms of the same, old action games? I was around when we had the birth of the entire industry with Atari, Commodore 64, Amiga, NES and all that, and I fear I'll be here to see the end of it, too.

sockmunkey

Someone neglected to tell CDprojectRed that RPGs are dead. The Witcher series has been fabulous.

reagenlionel1

I'm pretty much with Ladymythos there.

The likihood for them to die I dont exactly see coming full on. But as long the gamers of the recent decade, flock towards the games that give them most of what they want, right now. It kind of distills patience and nessecary build up that RPG's and actual adventure games require.

ladymythos

sockmunkey wrote: »

Someone neglected to tell CDprojectRed that RPGs are dead. The Witcher series has been fabulous.

It might be a good game, but it's not a RPG. It's an action game at best.

reagenlionel1 wrote: »

I'm pretty much with Ladymythos there.

The likihood for them to die I dont exactly see coming full on. But as long the gamers of the recent decade, flock towards the games that give them most of what they want, right now. It kind of distills patience and nessecary build up that RPG's and actual adventure games require.

The problem is that RPGs are already dead, or at best holding on to their last breath. Like sockmonkey said, The Witcher is a good game. The problem is it's not really an RPG, but an action-game with some RPG elements. Diablo? Action game. Elder Scrolls? Action. Dragon Age and Mass Effect? Action-games with some RPG-elements, and that from the developers who reinvented the whole RPG-genre and brought it back to life. If even Bioware, Obsidian and Bethesda can't make RPGs anymore, what chance do others have?

So no, there will always be games with RPG elements. You might even say those games are getting more and more popular these days. But true RPGs? We haven't had those since Baldur's Gate, and it's not looking good for the genre. It might not be dead, but it's long past it's glory days. The golden age of RPGs have moved on into the golden age of "this is RPG because I say it is RPG"-action games.

beckylunatic

I would think The Witcher series is as much RPG as Planescape: Torment ever was, really.

sockmunkey

Yea, I dont get the whole "its not an RPG" thing. It has a deep mature story, meaningful choices, and loads of grey on grey morality. I could care less if engine is point and click adventure style, or action. To me, it has everything it needs to qualify as a top notch RPG.

The first two Witchers won an impressive number of awards from the gaming community for being quality RPGs. And the third is looking to out do the previous two.

If you are simply discounting a game as non RPG simply due to its choice of engine. You are honestly limiting yourself.

beckylunatic

I thought the rationale was more likely because you have to play as Geralt, instead of making up a character. That was the basis of my comparison to a game where you have to play as The Nameless One, but within that framework it probably has the most meaningful character development and choices you can get.

reiwulf

I think a problem with RPGs today is that many new players don't want to wait for what they want to get. They want it now. And in RPGs you had to be patient, you couldn't get everything done in a day, players are much more impatient now and maybe much more casual too.

sockmunkey

beckylunatic wrote: »

I thought the rationale was more likely because you have to play as Geralt, instead of making up a character. That was the basis of my comparison to a game where you have to play as The Nameless One, but within that framework it probably has the most meaningful character development and choices you can get.

Well, weather you get to play your own character or a defined one. You are still playing a role, the very core element of an RPG. Besides, I don't think Ladymythos agrees. She mentioned Monkey Island of her example of a quality RPG, and those games have you locked into playing Guybrush.

Not that I have a problem with the old Lucasarts SCUMM based games. I just feel the real topic is not if RPGs are dead, but the various genres of them. The old point and click adventures, might be dead, but not RPGs as a whole. Titles like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and the Witcher have been doing quite well as RPGs. They just don't seem to be the type of RPGs Ladymythos is longing for, but they are RPGs regardless.

colonelwing

Back in the days, i really i enjoyed playing the game, Discworld. To me the point and click - adventure rpg games died with Syberia. Which in my opinion is one of the best. The second game wasn't as good as the first one but has newer graphics of course.

reagenlionel1

reiwulf wrote: »

I think a problem with RPGs today is that many new players don't want to wait for what they want to get. They want it now. And in RPGs you had to be patient, you couldn't get everything done in a day, players are much more impatient now and maybe much more casual too.

Thats essentially what I was saying in my post too. And thats what I've been observing for the longest time as well, and thats what it seems to boil down to.