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Comments
What are some WRPGs you've played?
Just hand him a copy of Planescape Torment and let that be.
I think you mean "a copy of Planescape Torment and a link to the six or so patches you'll want to make it run well on a modern PC" :P
(though actually, I think one of the six patches I installed was to restore cut content and another was for balance, so I guess that's just four)
Avadon and Baldur's Gate. Both not very much. I dropped BG because it seemed tedious.
Well, there's also dungeon-crawlers, like Nethack, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance (GBA), Etrian Odyssey, and Torchlight.
I've been trying to get Planescape Torment or Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, but after a bad experience with BG1 (I've heard BG2 is better?) I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy them.
I picked up Avadon since it seemed interesting and was part of a Humble Bundle.
I didn't use patches and my computer manages to runs it OK. *shrug*
but yeah, I guess he'd need those
And I'm not sure how much it counts, but there's Juka and the Monophonic Menace, which is like a simplified action RPG.
^^^I wouldn't recommend Oblivion for what you're looking for; It's definitely the worst 3D TES game and the main quest, while it does sorta have the sense of motivation you're talking about, is pretty much the least interesting part of the game.
Hang on a second, I'm going to look through all my WRPGs.
That's because it isn't; it's about nine and a half years old.
North American release date (the earliest release) November 17, 2002.
@INUH: Are there any WRPGs with good music? Preferably more than just simple ambience to help set the atmosphere.
There are a lot of WRPGs with good music. Mass Effect has a pretty awesome soundtrack in all three games. The Elder Scrolls, while not quite as good overall, has a nice main theme that's redone for each game.
So I started up Avadon and found decent title screen music, though of the typical symphonic fantasy style. Then I played into the dungeon, and heard...well, just ambient noises.
I've since finished the first dungeon, but haven't heard any noticeable new music.
In contrast, I've noticed that eastern games tend to have much more memorable music.
Mass Effect 3's soundtrack is done by Clint Mansell, therefore, it's boss.
(but Mass Effect EA
)
If you're going to avoid buying a game because of who the publisher is, you'll miss out on some very good games :P
I think it's pretty universal in games that a good story isn't really required unless the game actively decides to be story-driven. For instance, The Witcher 2 is one of my all-time favourite games -- a WRPG with essentially a JRPG narrative setup. One of its selling points is the strength of the story and characters, and on those counts is succeeds really well. While we could certainly do with more games that succeed at great story-driven experiences, at the same time, a lot of the greatest games have only vague or even non-existent stories. Let me throw down some examples:
Demon's Souls and Dark Souls technically have stories, but the bulk of each game is simply experiencing the dungeon-like world with the mechanics you have at your disposal. They're like the design inversion of The Witcher -- JRPGs that take notes from WRPGS -- with equally successful results. In this case, each game has an incredibly strong narrative experience, but narrative isn't story as such. They simply tell the experience so effectively that micro-stories are generated by gameplay, like the way you successfully dealt with a certain obstacle, how you came into possession of a particular piece of knowledge or when a fall you thought would kill you put you in an area you didn't know existed.
Minecraft has no story whatsoever, but has skyrocketed to popularity. What story does it need? With a self-generating world and limited access to offensive resources, it's a sandbox construction toolkit with strong exploratory elements that becomes survival horror in the dark. This is a case where the experience speaks for itself and, once again, generates microstories.
Pokemon, again, technically has a story, but it's not as though it's a story-driven game. There's enough there to contextualise your place in the world and provide you with a goal to strive towards, but beyond that it's essentially a game about manipulating the deep and varied system it provides. It's unusual in that it's a JRPG that threw WRPG design concepts at us before WRPGs as we knew them became codified as they were today. The whole game is built on the tension of combat, strategy and progression.
The thing is that you can have a game without a conventional story be an absolutely enthralling experience, from playground games, to chess, to sports to Total War and whatever other video games you care to mention. But a game focused on story that doesn't provide a compelling core experience is still essentially a bad game. Whether it's a JRPG or WRPG or whatever, if that core element of gameplay and interaction isn't there, then it's pretty much nothing. And you'll find that JRPGs have that "experiencing the world" thing down, too, at least the good ones. A lot of SNES JRPGs moved European folklore through a Japanese perspective and combined it with the kind of technology Renaissance thinkers dreamed of at night and it was compelling because it was this different world with different rules. And that's not just what RPGs are based on -- all games pretty much need this, even if they're not strictly fantasy.
For instance, the whole concept of GTA boils down to, "What if I didn't have to follow the law?". It's not fantasy, but it's still a diversion from reality in the way it alters the framework of the real world in a very fundamental way. Even something like the endlessly-released Madden titles reframe reality as "What if I influenced my favourite team?". A game begins with a query like this, no matter its point of origin, and if it fails to allow the player to interact with that query on a meaningful level it no doubt fails.
To take an upcoming example, the historical action game War of the Roses has the query of "What if I was an English soldier during the 15th century?". To that end, it contains dozens or hundreds of pieces of gear, customisation and a variety of combat options up close and from afar. All these options could be considered a bit superfluous -- you could have five or six set classes and call it a day, it would still potentially be a good game -- but the game takes it a step further to really interact with the query in a way that's meaningful when attached to the core gameplay. While the game will no doubt have small comment on the morality of the titular war, the division between good soldiers and bad soldiers or anything of that nature, the ability to customise one's gear is a mechanically meaningful choice that helps explore the initial question and answer that framework -- and better yet, it's can be answered in a way that's unique to every individual player.
Every good game understands this, which is why The Legend of Zelda doesn't have you interior decorating. Zelda games are about being where Robin Hood meets King Arthur, which is why almost everything you do is about interacting with the concept via combat or puzzle-solving, often with arcane gadgets and mythological symbology.
bluh bluh bluh semantics
it's not even semantics, it's just pedantics
More WRPG recommendations:
that's the joke
This is true, but at the same time, voting with your money is a thing. I generally don't buy games if I think doing so will support some trend in the game industry that I don't think is worth supporting, be that in terms of game design or business practise. It might just seem like a drop in the ocean, but I'd encourage others to do the same. One cool thing that can come from this on the immediate consumer end is expanding your appreciation for different kinds of games -- perhaps you might spend the money you otherwise might have spent on Dubious AAA Title on two or three lesser known or older games, or a different new game that was on your "maybe" list. If nothing else, it can be an opportunity to experience what else is out there.
what if i say no
come at me, forzabro
^^Doesn't that just boil down to "don't buy a game if you don't think you'll like it?"
I think it's more "Don't buy a game which you'll probably like if you think the money is going to encourage something you don't like or approve of, be it games design-wise or business practice-wise"
^^ Not necessarily. I ended up getting Mass Effect 3 as a gift (without asking, mind), but I wasn't going to buy it myself because of the DLC shenanigans. By all accounts I enjoyed ME3 and expected to like it, but I wasn't going to buy it unless/until the DLC silliness had been sorted out. Similarly, I found the Modern Warfare games fun, but I didn't actually buy MW2 or MW3 because I don't agree with the proliferation of the FPS. Unfortunately, my younger brother doesn't really spend his money so conscientiously, but on the bright side of that I got to play those games.
To that end, I'm probably not going to buy Resident Evil 6 and I'm certainly not buying the latest Soul Calibur when I might have if the advertising campaign weren't so awful. This is all stuff I consider fun and series that have been with me for quite a while, but I'm really done with paying money for stuff I find objectionable in some significant way or another.
ninjuan'd
so alex
how do you feel about renting
Ah, fair enough, then.
> like a game from a company with bad practise
> rent it instead of buying it
> engage trollface