The Platinum Age of CRPGs

Matt Barton writes "I've just posted my third (and final) installment on CRPG history at GamaSutra: The Platinum and Modern Ages. This article covers the many classics released between 1994 and 2004, including Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Ultima Underworld, and of course Baldur's Gate, Diablo, and The Elder Scrolls. It also discusses why WoW and other MMORPGs aren't descended from these CRPGs (but rather MUDs). The Platinum Age produced the finest CRPGs ever made — but the future of the stand-alone, single-player CRPG looks grim."

Comments

Nethack

[mandelbr0t]

Bah. The single-player CRPG is not dead, and it never will be. I've only ascended 3 of the total classes, now working on Monk :)

Re:Nethack

[Cheapy]

Nethack is what you make it. Most players choose the "homicidal kleptomaniac" role however. Play a Knight, and you have a code to follow. Same for Monks and Samurai (to a lesser extent).

So there are some roles to play...but it'd be hard to justify it as a CRPG. However, RPGs have taken a different meaning from role-playing games. An RPG is more of a 'hack'n'slash' if anything else now.

Re:Nethack

[blahplusplus]

"An RPG is more of a 'hack'n'slash' if anything else now."

Give me a break, RPG's were based on old war miniature board games and the like. Go look at one of the most famous games of all time, a text game - Legend of the red dragon from the BBS days, a text game based heavily on combat, stats and humorously written one liners. The thing is because of the lack of graphics the text was input for the hugest creativity engine in existence: Your brain. You fill in the gaps and imagine things while playing the game simply based on the text output, you imagine it in your head just the way you want it. Such complexity is "Not here yet" (tm)

RPG's do not have to be complicated to the nth degree with too much social or other scaffolding that gets in the way of the core elements of roleplaying games ** to be engaged in interesting activities ** that are *enjoyable*. What seperates the real game developers out there from what I like to call "western computer RPG purists", is that they understand that games must ENTERTAIN and be fun above all most of the time a vast audience or they make no money. Myself, as primarily an action oriented gamer, I get frustrated when I am doing things that are boring and tedious where I am taken out of the game to watch some lengthly B-rated cutscene... or in which I am not in control of the activity. I find Navigating the world for 3-5 minutes straight or more with me doing nothing but being a passive observer (being taken out of the game) boring as hell. This is why I always have had a huge love-hate relationship with modern MMO's the time required to travel from place to place is enormous and MMO's waste countless hours of real engagement simply floating or running around the map (A waste of my valuable time IMHO). When games like Diablo and Diablo 2 Understood the value of TOWN PORTAL. MMO's basically take the best gaming conventions learned by trial and error and gut them completely. MMO developers make standard features (like town portal) broken or unavailable to the point where it is just bordering on limits of player annoyance just to make sure you dont "go through the content too fast". Which IMHO is working against what game making should be about: Making great games, not breaking the immersion and reducing their fun factor for profit.

So MMO's and their ilk breed generations of passive gamers (i.e. TV watchers) rather then real 'game players' (i.e. where you are directly involved in controlling or skilllfully mastering a character and making decisions that effect outcomes).

Muds were better."Platinum age is only hindsight"

[kinglink]

Ok Might and magic 6-8 are personal favorites, and morrowind is amazing, but when I want to really "RPG" I spent my time on different MUDs, because they gave the player freedom to do what they want and play in which world they wanted. It was a great and different experience every time you logged onto a different mud. Interconnected worlds where you could chat with people, unique monsters you could never find anywhere else. I worked on a mud and the best part is a week of code could create something radically different, versus working in the game industry where it will take at least a month of code + animators to even implement simple thoughts.

But calling something the ______ age always makes me think that the people can't remember crap. You know how the NES was the "golden age of games" Heaven forbid we remember that most games used odd passwords (Willow, river city ransom) for saves, there was at least 10 games that were clones of the "classics" we cherish now. Games were unbelievably hard to the point that they made the game genie and so on. We can still play the "classics" but wishing us back into that hell where crap piled up faster then the gems would only make the masochist happy.

I loved Diablo, I didn't love Nox, and the other 5 or 6 clones of Diablo that came out right after Diablo. We can complain about games now but then 10 years from now people will be talking about how great oblivion and World of Warcraft is compared to the "crap" they have then.

It's great that this guy believes that the 1994 to 2004 is the "best time for RPGs" but hell, World of Warcraft is a fun game too. But bitching about the fact that games now are more similar to MUDs than CRPGs ignores the real fact of the industry.

THE PC IS DYING! He approaches this thought but seems to miss it. PC game sales have decreased over the years to the point where the industry is writing it off. A great game on the PC sells less than half what it would if it is on a console. Hell a MODERATE game on the console still outsells the best games on the PC and the industry knows this. The reason is up to the reader to figure out but KOTOR was ported to the XBOX. There's many more CRPGs taking that path (morrowind, oblivion, fable). CRPGs are just appearing in different places than just the PC.

I have been finding Gamasutra to be the rantings and whining of game industry's past heros. Guys who have been there, done that, but never got their name out there. There's good articles but this isn't changing my opinion that in general the articles there are either agenda pieces or rantings.

Completely miss the point of Neverwinter Nights

[Etyenne]

The guy completely miss the point of Neverwinter Nights. He talked only about the original campaign (OC), the scenario that came "in the box", which is IMHO pretty average. The real genius of NWN is that it's more than a game, it's a platform for CRPG development. It created a development community around the game that is not entirely different than what you would find around an Open-Source development platform such as PHP or Ruby on Rail. From modules to custom content (such as artwork, monster, etc) to hackpak that modified the game engine behavior, everything was open to the community. I cannot think of a single game that had as much fan content made and distributed. You could play NWN for years using just the highest rated modules from the community, all distributed for free. Not only that, but Bioware embraced the community, incorporated community developed material back into the product and still actively encourage development to this day.

Forget the OC. Go buy NWN Planitinium from the nearest bargain bin, and play the Dreamcatcher, Shadowlord, Kosigan and Penultimate series of modules. There are hundreds of hours of gameplay to be had from what the community developed, with some of the most engrossing storyline in the CRPG genre. Neglecting to acknowledge this is the the most glaring overlook from this Gamasutra article.

Did I mention it have a native Linux port ?

Re:Truth!

[servognome]

Pretty graphics killed gameplay long before the first "M" in "MMORPG" became practical

That argument has been used and reused since the introduction of graphics. Pretty graphics and a boring game were a problem almost 20 years ago. The landscape of games hasn't changed, there always has been 10 bad games for every great game, it's just our memories filter out the bad when we reflect on the past
 
"When everything is put together, Legend of Blacksilver is
somewhat disappointing. The game is fine on a technical
level, but on an artistic level it seems to be a rehash of a
thousand other games, with nothing new or interesting for
experienced players. Certainly, anyone who is bored with the
old "Go Kill the Evil Magician" plot should stay away." - CGW 3/1989