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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."
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 :)
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
The trouble with Platinum is, where do you go from there? It's like an amp that only goes up to 10.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Part of the reason for the rise and decline of these games can be traced to the computing power of the eras. RPGs were getting better and better because the ability to make them more appealing - graphically, sound (voice quality, etc) were improving. It became easier to develop a more immersive environment, and so more and more attention went to writing a story that could show off the quality that was possible.
Unfortunately, with the rise of greater and easier connectivity, the ability to play RPG's with more friends came - and thus we saw the rise of the MMORPG. Although they might have first envisioned being more RPG than MUD, the popularity of the games erased Role-Playing very quickly. (Joe Sixpack likes killing monsters, but doesn't give a damn about "Thou and thee.")
What would it take for a great single-player RPG now? A game so enjoyable that it overshadows the enjoyment factor of playing a similar game with hundreds of others. Humans are social creatures, by and large, so that will be very tough to do. It won't be a hack-and-slash dungeon crawler in any case; that genre is utterly oversaturated in MMORPGs.
If another great RPG series is developed, my money is on a Fallout/Shadowrun-genre RPG; it's about the only genre not super-satured (ignoring the embarassing Matrix attempt at it) in the MMO world. (Though, in all honesty, the idea of playing a Shadowrun MMORPG....whew. I'm in, chummers.)
Technological competence assures no more intelligence than any other form, just more elitism.
FYI, here's Part I (The Early Years 1980-1983) and Part II (The Golden Age 1985-1993).
Might save you a little digging as for some reason part I doesn't show up on his bio.
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.
Apparently, he thinks that Dante wrote Paradise Lost. While I think that he meant The Divine Comedy, he really needs someone to check his work.
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
FTA:
To my mind, the games that really represent the best of the genre appeared during the period I've termed the "Platinum Age," which begins in 1996 with the publication of three very important games, Origin's Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (1992), Blizzard's Diablo, and Bethesda's Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall (both 1996)....
So the Platinum Age began in 1996 with the publication of a game from 1992?
Show me ONE flight sim for consoles that sold as well as ANY of the MS Flight Simulator series. Hell, show me one flight sim for consoles, period. They don't exist. The closest you can come are arcade shoot-em-ups that involve shooting from a plane, but there's NO emphasis on accuracy of the flight models, or physics, or anything else except making the explosions look good.
Same goes for racing simulations. Many arcade "racing" games, no real emphasis on being an accurate simulation. Sadly, in the case of racing simulations, the PC world has abandoned simulations for the most part as well.
I won't even get into the MMORPG issue, but again, no comparison. You're right though, some CRPGs are being ported to consoles. But it doesn't change the fact that they were, are, and will be available for the PC, and if not released before the console version, released at the same time.
Until the Wii came along, the ONLY place to find games the casual gamer liked was on the PC. The Wii may steal that market, it may not. Only time will tell there.
And as soon as they start allowing PC vs console gaming (I believe the 360 is planning on doing this via their Live service) the console world is going to get spanked as those that swear by FPSs on consoles find out that the PC truely does have the superior control system.
PC game popularity runs in cycles, almost exactly opposite console popularity. Every time a new round of consoles comes out, PC gaming drops off. After a year or two, it comes right back, as all the graphics whores realize that their precious console looks like shit compared to bleeding edge PC graphics, which kept moving, instead of becoming fixed when the console reached production. In the mean time, the PC faithful still keep buying and playing games, knowing that neither consoles or PC gaming is going away.
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 ?
:wq
For me, it's too much eye candy today. The driving force behind RPG's was to use one's imagination. You couldn't see the six foot flaming sword in the iron golem's hand. And this was true of the CRPG's that we reminisce about. Ultima series, TSR's Gold box series, Wizardry series and the likes. You only saw a static low res pic of what was going on. You had to imagine that the pitiful sound comming out of the PC speaker was the crack of a high-powered round. And they usually had a good story line that kept you interested. I recently cranked up the C64 emulator and played my favs Wizard's Crown, Eternal Dagger, and Wasteland. Still great fun after 15 years. Nowdays, there is very little to imagine. Just eye candy in 'real time'.