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Why Computer RPGs Waste Your Time
spidweb writes "RPGVault has an editorial about two particularly noxious qualities of computer role-playing games. Spiderweb Software's Jeff Vogel goes off on a tear, discussing how you work forever to earn the right to do anything exciting, and must 'prove yourself' by expending tons of your time. From the article: 'So now, thinking about playing an RPG just makes me tired. I'm tired of starting a new game and being a loser. I'm tired of running the same errands to prove myself. The next time I enter my fantasy world, I want it to not assume that I'm a jackass.'" I think Oblivion handled this well, scaling the world as you went and giving you really interesting things to do from the get-go. What other games dodge this bullet? Do you see this timesink as an inevitable part of the RPG genre?
They both were engrossing from the start. I'm going to venture a guess (without reading tfa) that the author is speaking more in terms of MMOs, which as I understand it put you through a lot of tedious crap before you get to the good parts of the game.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
If you don't like it don't play. As I'm sure you're aware, there's plenty of other ways to spend your free time. Don't try and foist your problems with RPG onto me. TFA lacked anything more than anecdotal "I played for too long and didn't have any fun".
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
What sweeping statements he's making! None of what he said would even sound vaguely familiar to me if not for the PVP aspects of MMORPGs, where people expect you to be at some sort of "honor level" or "rank" or whatever in order to play with you, which becomes a vicious circle. (Can't play to gain rank because your rank isn't high enough.)
But "computer RPGs" in general? And what would those be? Oblivion? Baldur's Gate? Dungeon Siege? Neverwinter Nights? KOTOR? I mean give me a break, those games do NOT treat you like a moron who has to grind in order to do anything fun. Those games give you ongoing, increasingly challenging excitement. There's no sense of "I played long enough so now I get to have fun" at all! I'm really confused by the sentiment.
Though I admit to not having read the article (blocked here).
I like basketball!!1!
The author sounds like he's got attention span issues. If an RPG only took 10 hours to play, I'd feel ripped off. For games in general, I usually deem one hour per dollar spent a 'break-even' point in terms of ROI. 10 hours would be a total loss, unless it was a bargain bin game. Some of my favorites (Guild Wars, Half-Life 2, etc.) are well past the one hour per dollar level.
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
Guild Wars was able to avoid the grind to some extent. You max out at level 20 and it doesn't take terribly long to get to that point. There's also not a whole lot of expensive and essential equipment. You can fairly quickly pick up what you need as monster drops along the way.
There's still specialty stuff that might cost a pretty penny or take a lot of random fighting until you get the drop you want, but that's totally unnecessary to being successful at the game. Unfortunately, they may have taken a step back in that regard. In their latest chapter, Nightfall, you have to earn points to gain in rank for certain quests. It's not too much of a grind but it's not quite as open as their original chapter was in that regard.
Call me old-fashioned, but isn't this the point of most computer games, not just RPGs ? If you want to defeat the boss, you have to play all the levels before it. Or use the cheat code. In CRPGs, the story is often a key point of the game. And in Japanese RPGs, you often start out doing exciting things - Final Fantasy 7/8/.., anyone.
And that's not just in computer games. If you read a novel, you'll have to start at the beginning and read all the pages until the end. If you want to climb a mountain and brag about it, you're not going to take the lift.
Geez, what is it about this young generation that feels entitled to instant gratification ?
What he is complaining about sounds more like an MMO then an RPG. I don't recall being given quests to kill 500 wolves in an RPG. In a lot of RPGs you just level with out noticing. It's not something you have to go and "do".
Also, this guy apparently established his own Game Design company making... RPGs! So why doesn't he just shut up and go make one the way he wants? He says he wants an RPG that can be finished in 10-12 hours instead of the 40+ most of them are.. Dude, that's what makes an RPG an RPG. It's long very detailed story!
For a guy who designs RPGs he seems like he doesn't understand what makes them great. If I'm not mistaken, he could just go play some of the new FPS's which have detailed story lines that only take about 10 hours to beat. They don't involve leveling and don't require you to quest..
So stop making RPGs and start playing FPS's!
Spiderweb Software is the name of Jeff's company (and links to his website), and I believe spidweb is his nickname on his forums. Did he submit his own article?
Well, first off, define "loser". Do you mean a character who is challenged by lesser encounters? Or do you mean a loser in the eyes of your peers (other players in an MMORPG)?
Seems to me a question of what you're looking to get out of an RPG. If you want to have uber-equipment and incredible spells/skills/whatever, sure, there's a grind. It's kind of like life -- it's rare to be rewarded for doing nothing.
For me, RPGs are all about the challenge. Since I don't have the time to play games for countless hours, what this leaves me with are games that are difficult in the early game (like Bard's Tale was). This still holds true for me -- once my character is powerful, I'll start a new character and handicap him. I'm one of those idiots who plays a vegetarian knight in Nethack, or an archer in Baldur's Gate (console) who refuses to use a bow.
Fundamentally, it's about what you want out of an RPG -- and if you want all the gravy, you should be prepared to work for it. (Or pay for it -- there are plenty of services out there that will do so for you). What's the point of all the cool stuff if you never have to work for it?
One other note -- if you define your character by how others perceive it, and identify with the character to the point that you're upset that others are more powerful, or have access to "cooler stuff", maybe you should be thinking about how much you have emotionally invested in a videogame.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I don't think it would be beyond the realm of possibility to have an RPG start your off with some complex task requiring some familiarity, if you succeed you can proceed from there, if you fail you get knocked into some scenario where you have to build yourself up from the dumb dumb status.
Think of Oblivion... maybe you were half way through the ranks in the thieves guild when you start and you get a decent mission, if you fail (get caught) you're thrown in jail and the game starts with you killing rats (training). But if you succeed you keep playing from that point on... and the main quest would kick off in some other scenario. I'm sure you could apply the same thing to any number of other games.
Collector's Edition
I'm a long time gamer and i've been known to get sucked into FF11 and then the far superior WoW.
I had so much fun with WoW, but I ended up quitting and eventually feeling disdain towards the MMO genre as it currently exists.
I honestly can't find a nugget of story or novelesque quality at all in either of the MMOs I've mentioned. On top of that, the entire game structure is set around rewarding you for spending your time playing. I find that beyond superficial familiarity of your abilities and being observant in-general there's no real skill to be had in these titles. I can't believe I worked so hard to get a stupid mount in WoW...
In the time it took me to grow to level 45 with two seperate characters I could have beaten a number of games that had a MUCH higher engagement level than WoW. WoW is drawn out and slow, you have to play for an hour to complete a quest (you know what I'm talking about, don't nitpick me here). I've come to realize that I'd rather have a much more condensed gaming experience. I feel that for every 1 part of WoW i expended 3 parts time. Why bother when there's SO many great titles out with closer to 1:1 ratio?
I don't really have anything at all against the people who play the games.. But, for me (at least personally) I find them to be an extremely inefficient use of time.
I am talking about the RPG effect were the end or even the mid-level game is just one long hack&slash. Offcourse you might have a different opinion, maybe the descende into one long slaughter session is what you call the exitiing bit and you are glad to have gotten that boring talkie stuff.
Not even NWN2 succeeds here. Part of the problem is that the game gets too big. You go from a having a small party whose members are constantly in each others hair providing color, to a HUGE party who members you can barely get to know, whose interaction is extremely random because you have ZERO change of hitting the right combo of party members at the right moment/location.
But an ever worse game was a RPG set in our own medeival times but were magic was real. It started out as a good RPG but soon became nothing more then one long dungeon crawl with zero Rpg elements.
But back to bashing NWN2. If you have played it, you will have seen a loading screen message that tells you that you can interact with your party members enough to change them. What they don't say is that you can change ONE of them. The dwarf can become a monk. About half way through too and then that is it. Zero reaction from him.
Whoopee. Then again, the entire game is not to fleshed out. Only one romance option per gender. No same sex romance. If only they hadn't gone for a every single class as a party member approach and concentraded on a smaller group they could have avoided all that.
BUT I never really came across the need to 'grind' in a PC RPG. Yeah, in a way perhaps the whole bit in NWN2 were you got to do quest after quest to get access to the next area in your quest. Espcially since the "part of Neverwinter blocked of by the guards" bit is getting pretty old by now. Is that city ever not under lockdown?
Yet that is part of the gameplay, sure it is not the best story telling to do all these quests when you feel you should be rushing to get inside but that is the way bad stories work. It is like that eternal sex scene in action movies were the leads suddenly get naked for no reason when they really should be trying to solve the case.
As for ALWAYS playing a newbie. Well yeah, that can get old. Again NWN2 fails here a bit. Since you can create your own character you get the effect of being treated like a kid when your character is a 200 year old elf. Sure, they mature slower but still. Wel at least they were bright enough to make your forster father an elf as well.
As for starting at level 1. Okay, just try to imagine a game where you start at level 20. Problem? Well, if it is D&D beyond that you start to come close to godhood. Monk's are near invulnerable. Fighters slice and dice through anything, magic users don't have a single spell available anymore that does NOT wipe out the entire party (by accident, I SWEAR!) and healers can pull people back from death before they were born.
Sure a TRUE RPG could probably pull it off. In fact there is an other genre of games that already does. It is called an adventure. RPG without the combat. Because what does the combat mean if you are so fucking powerfull that nobody can stand against you. It would have to be an RPG with extreme story telling.
I want one, but in todays world were not a single RPG designer can resist skipping corners by just adding a few extra levels of nothing but boring nasties you already defeated dozen of times, I am not holding my breath.
Even the legendary Planescape Torment had them.
But as for needing to grind up, he is playing the wrong games.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Or enjoyed it a little less, as the case may be. What's the point of advancement if everything else advances at the exact same rate?
The concept of 'wasted time' is completely dependent on the person who is doing the activity. For some people, it's a fun and rewarding experience to start a character in a different world/time/setting and build that character up through experiences and quests. However, for some people, this is akin to pulling teeth: an agonizing trial that they believe separates them from the action at the endgame. In the latter category, I'd place the author.
I'm one of those people that likes the build a character from scratch and have them grow as I see fit. For this reasons, CRPGs are perfect for me, and don't feel like a waste of time at all. The fact that the author complains about 90 minutes of doing a quest when he could have used that time for something more 'exciting', like watching a movie, tells me one thing: he should definately get his entertainment elsewhere. He wants spontaneous action, he doesn't want to build the character but have it handed to him on a silver platter. There's nothing wrong about that, since there are plenty of games that do this, but CRPGs are not one of them.
It's not a matter of the CRPGs being at fault, it's just the author looking in the wrong place for his entertainment.
That isn't why RPGS/MMOs waste our time. That's simply how they do it. So why do they?
Because you love them, darnit >:(
People enjoyed it so much less that the most popular mods for the game are those like Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, which at it's core is about making it so the Level 1 newbie can't realistically expect to face off against the mightiest beings in the world and expect to live for longer than a second. It brings back the sense of awe and underlying fear that make the world seem more alive, as well as the sense of accomplishment when you finally do gain enough experience for your hero to hand that boss it's arse on a platter.
I don't normally play computer games. Before I tried COH/COV the last game I played was on the Apple ][. So, you see, this was a bit of a leap. I love RPG games, running mainly. I specific like superhero games, like Champions. I spent some 20 years playing with a large group of people and other gatherings like Dundracon. I also very much enjoyed the game V&V for it's simple system that allow people to get into the game quickly. With pen and paper RPGs it was important to make sure people had a good time. Most game system got-it. Some did not. And, before you go pointing out the problem with these systems, I and everyone else knows there is not perfect system. They all have flaws, but most are fun.
When I started COH/COV is was interesting for it's newness, to me. But after playing a while I found it's shortcomings quickly. You start as a complete idiot. You are basically a normal person who can't drive a car, motorcycle, or ride a buss. Your "powers" can only be described as a few lousy tricks, at the start. You only get real powers at around level 38. It's only then that you even start to have power that you might start with in the pen and paper system. So if you want to imagine yourself as a homeless person, unable to use normal human transportation, who can preform little tricks, then you gotta love this game.
There is little imagination to it also. All characters complete the exact same "missions" and they are never in public. The mission take place in an isolated bubble. The missions always come down to these simple goals or a combination.
1) Defeat everyone
2) Defeat so-and-so
3) Kidnap somebody
4) Click on glowing or translucent things
5) Beat up an object(s) and escape(like bank vault)
The only goal is to "level-up" and beyond that there is little going on. The only place where user content utilized, besides characters, is in base construction.
One day someone will tap into the imagination of the people who love these games, and create a system where people can contribute. This generic system will play host to a number of different genre. People will be able to create their own "mission" and "missions" for others.
Maybe I don't get it. But on COV I have a "mastermind" character. As a Mastermind I only end up taking orders from others.
Never mind. I've just thought of my next project.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
It isn't the grind. Sure, the grinding wastes time to turn five hours of content (much of which these days is cut-scenes) into 50 hours of game. My pet peeve is the forced grind caused by random encounters that come out of nowhere. Walk 30 seconds, fight five minutes, repeat. That gets really annoying when you're just wandering around trying to figure out where the hell you are.
Now I admit that back in the old days ('80s) it was simply easier to write the code to work that way. Having random monsters show on the map might not even be feasible depending on the sprite limitations of the video hardware.
But that was two decades ago, and you'd think that by now that the "walk 30 seconds, fight five minutes, repeat" paradigm would be as dead as a hobgoblin killed by a 60th level GrindMaster.
And even some of the new metaphors aren't all that great. A friend of mine figured how to set up FFXII to quite literally play itself. He rigged up the auto-combat so that a particular battle would esentially last forever (with a monster that kept spawning minions), started the battle, then walked away. When he got back, he just had to interrupt the auto-combat and kill the main monster manually.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Myst Online : Uru Live
Its a role playing game that is unlike any other I have played. There is no levelling, the bad guys are archaeologists and there's a fantastic community behind it. The premise of the game is simple, you felt called to a underground cavern where a group of archaeologists are working to restore a ancient civilisation they've discovered, you take the time to explore really quite beautiful ages, you get rewards for completing ages (but can choose to ignore them if you wish), there are puzzles aplenty (which if you get stuck on come and ask someone in the community) and we can actually effect the storyline. I like it, everyone starts out the same (Uru stands for You Are You) the only difference is if you have completed one age or anouther and what side you have allied yourself with. Its not a grinding style of game, I've completed all the ages and gained all the current Relto pages but I only have 7 on because they are the seven which make my starting point look best to me. If your tired of leveling then give it a go it launched today and the first month is only 99 cents.
I only mention it because there are alternative to level grinding RPG and this is one of them
I read peoples' comments on my article with great interest. Though they didn't, by and large, seem very useful.
My main point is that most RPGs are unnecessarily long. They pad out their length with busywork. They start you as a nobody instead of a hero, and force you to earn the right to do interesting things with menial and repetetive tasks. And you know something? It's still a valid point.
I'm not being a whiner. Sheesh. If computer games are worth playing, they're worth examining, breaking down, criticizing (if necessary), and improving.
People repeatedly told me to play other types of games. Guess what? I do. But I think it's worthwhile to say why.
There have been a few RPGs that trimmed the fat and the busywork and gave experiences with constant variety and excitement. KOTOR I-II. Baldur's Gate I-II. Planescape: Torment. Fallout 1-2. (So, what? Ten in 10 years?) These should be held up and applauded. But there are a lot of games beyond the top tier that padded out their length with filler and the constant chopping up of trash monsters. Heck, practically all MMORPGs are nothing but this.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is an interesting case. It's very popular and a lot of people like it. But I spent most of my time wandering down interchangable corridors killing interchangable monsters. I don't think this game refutes my point.
When I look for a game now, I look for a game that wows me with 10-15 hours of kick ass A-list material and then lets me go. (God of War and Shadows of the COlossus are great examples). But the RPG genre seems to have grinding and filler in its DNA, so I'm staying away. Seems reasonable.
- Jeff Vogel
Spiderweb Software
Fantasy RPGs for Mac and Windows.
http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com
Try giving Wizardry 8 a shot. Excellent phased combat system. I, like you, truly enjoy the phased aspect of an RPG. It allows for much more strategy and a lot less "I luckily clicked my hot button just before you did" style play.
Wizardry 8 also uses a party system, so your 4+ character requirement is happily satisfied. Characters start off fairly weak, allowing you to build them up. Another nice element is the ability to change professions, similar to FF Tactics. While you won't be superb at your new class immediately, you still have much improved base statistics to build off of. Obviously, this allows you to change a party member's class without requiring you to go back to the beginning area simply to have them live.
Wizardry has been an excellent RPG series, and 8 built upon that to create the modernized old-school RPG you are searching for. Here is a link to an overall review and summary for the game.
One thing to note though is that this is a 1-player game. I don't think you can really expect phased combat to ever enter the MMORPG arena. Most people don't have the patience to wait for others to setup turns continuously. This is the same problem Civilization has had with multiplayer.
Well, most people seem assume that Jeff Vogel is just another "I'm president of a software company, so I know what I'm talking about" guy. Wrong. This guy is also the main programmer of the Spiderwebsoftware. The company only has four people or so (do pet-taranulas count?). In any case, Jeff writes some excellent games - the Exile series (and the facelifted re-write the Avernum series) and the Geneforge series (to some extent) is pure crack for any old-school RPG addict.
If you have anything important to do, don't go download their trial versions - even the 1/3 of the game you can play before you have to register for the full version will cost you many, many, many, many hours. Personally, if you are not picky in the graphics sector, I'd reccommend you go for the Exile series first.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
Seriously.
I spent lots of time playing DnD in the 80's. Most of the time, we continued on with existing mid- or high-level characters. On the rare occurrence we wanted to start off new, we still started in the level 7 to 11 range. No one wanted to play a total noob and get killed when a weak enemy made one good roll.
Besides, whoever was being Dungeon Master knew they couldn't get away with killing off a bunch of player characters quickly, no matter what the dice said, or they would quickly find themselves very much alone.
DnD isn't responsible for gaming systems that require people to start from scratch and grind through low levels. Unimaginative people who never had friends to play with are the ones to blame for such things.
Nah, D&D isn't the culprit. Look, it's not about starting with a nuke spell and a vorpal sword, it's about starting doing boring, stupid, mundane, unimporting things like catching flies for your sister's collection or returning books to the library. There's nothing in D&D to enforce that. You could start a level 1 with a kitchen knife in D&D and still be right in the middle of something extremely important, if your GM had imagination.
The real culprit is the thrice-accursed Monomyth a.k.a. The Hero's Journey script that we got in video games via Hollywood. (Yes, if you thought 90% of what Hollywood produces is the exact same script with different props and details, you'd be right: it _is_ the same rehashed script.)
That script requires certain steps. You must start with an everyman character (Joe Average, basically) doing mundane things, that the viewer can empathise with. You don't even give him his goal until the middle of the story. Etc.
Now that by itself gets boring when I have seen the exact same script 100 times before in a movie, or in a game. But in a game the problems are just starting:
1. Who's doing it? In a movie I'm leaning back and just watching the hero do those mundane things for a while, and that's ok. In a game I'm required to actually do them. It's a bigger turn off. Sorry, that's not what I bought a game for. If I wanted to experience my barbarian's life as a peasant before the big life-changing events, I'd go back to playing Harvest Moon.
Now I'm not saying there should be only combat, far from it, but spare me the meaningless "see, as you start as an average joe" chores. Make it important. If it's just the "you started as a peasant" intro, then make it the FMV intro to the game and let me at the controls when I have something finally important to achieve. I'm not saying it should be the final goal from the start either. Just _something_ important.
FF7 for example got this right: you start as a mercenary in the middle of a mission to blow up a power plant. It's not the final goal, so it doesnt spoil story progression. But it's not boring, mundane and uninteresting either. You're someone, you're (supposedly) the trained professional these guys hired, and you're doing something fitting your (supposed) qualification and worth your fee. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
2. Time involved? In a 90 minute movie, the mundane intro parts are maybe 15 minutes. In an 18 hour game that would proportionally be 3 hours. Thankfully nowadays most game designers do drastically shorten it too, but there _are_ clueless attempts at applying the monomyth to the letter. Even if it means 3 hours worth of running around returning library books and lost puppies. Frankly, if 15 minutes are enough to introduce the characters in a movie, they're enough in a game too. There's no need to scale everything equally.
3. Does it even serve the same purpose? A movie is watched mostly in one go. A game isn't. Even _if_ that intro part served some purpose in a movie, for the transition between mundane and the movie world, that is lost in a game as soon as I save now and reload the next day. The next day I start directly in the middle of it without any such transition.
And frankly, by now we have plenty of evidence that it actually works perfectly without such transitions. There is no massive problem suspending disbelief when you reload directly in the middle of the plot. So why do we need it in the beginning anyway?
4. Scaling and time again. The monomyth taken literally is ok for a 3 hour story, but not for a 30 hour game. Building up linearly to the climax in 20 hours and coming down in 10 is boring. Even novels use multiple interwoven plots to keep it interesting over long periods of time.
There was this unsavoury comparing a good video game plot to multiple female orgasms, with plateaus and peaks all over the plac
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Well, see, the funny thing is that _the_ most successful MMORPG (it has RPG in the name at least) is exactly what you describe as "non-fun". And funnily it has over 90% of the MMO market. So most people actually find that fun, eh?
The thing is, in WoW, you may be level 1, but you start massively "uber" compared to similar level enemies. The wolves and kobolds in Northshire do 1 hp per attack, ffs. Not 1d6 or anything. Just 1 to 1. You have massive hp for your level, you hit several _times_ harder than any enemy, your hp regens right back in no time (which is why so few people appreciate a Paladin or Priest early), travel times are short, your equipment is perfectly adequate without any grinding or farming, etc. The only way to die even if you wanted to is to herd a small army of enemies or jump off Teldrassil if you're an elf. _Totally_ uber.
You'll even get your first non-soloable boss at all at level 10 or so. (Hogger, if you're a human, different ones for the others.) Until then, you're _the_ uber-soldier that can mow down NPCs left and right with impunity.
You're in some ways more uber than you'll be at level 70. You'll need damn good equipment to be uber at level 70, while at level 1 you're uber even naked. In some ways your whole progression through WoW is struggling to hold onto that level 1 god-like power as the enemies grow faster than your base stats do. You even end up letting go of some of that power in some domains, to better hang on to it in other domains. (The choice of talent trees, for example.)
Guess what? It's fun if done right.
Look, level and equipment progressions are good and motivating, but there's no reason to be dumb about it. Which is what a lot of game designers are.
Yes, you grow up in levels/spells/equipment, but so do the enemies. _That_ is the motivator in gaining levels. But against equal level enemies you can do well from day 1 and it _will_ be fun. Starting level 1 does _not_ mean you have to start an unsurvivable peasant against level 1 enemies. It just means you won't kill any level 20s for now, but against level 1 enemies you can still be as powerful as you want to.
I'm not saying I should start level 100 with a nuke. But my level 1 mage should still be perfectly able to kill a level 1 rat or kobold or whatever your game is all about. My level 1 modern soldier should be able to draw that pistol or M-16 he's been trained to use, and actually shoot a level 1 enemy. My level 1 padawan in a SW setting should be perfectly able to kill a level 1 Greedo, if he picks on me instead of Han. Etc. There is simply no bloody reason why, at _any_ point in the game, I shouldn't be able to put up a good fight against an _equal_ level enemy.
It also doesn't mean you have to start doing boring mundane stuff like rescuing kittens from trees and picking apples in the garden.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.