When I played real RPGs back in the day, the funest parts weren't combat. Their were quests revolved around mystery solving, treasure hunting and puzzle solving. Greatest moment revolved around interrogating some NPC or trying to keep up with a dog who caught the scent.
MMOs only make their "game" around combat, they never make any other "game" around negotiation, puzzle solving, chasing, climbing, jumping, mental abilities or focus skills, playing music, training your pet etc. The closest MMOs ever venture into is crafting or lock picking which 99% of the time is progress bar you click on or a "lock pikcing game" that took 2 days to put together in Unity.
When you make an MMO where "combat" is only 10% of the game and all the other skills are part of the quests and have their own mini game with as much production value as you put into the combat engine, you'll have a winner
When I played real RPGs back in the day, the funest parts weren't combat. Their were quests revolved around mystery solving, treasure hunting and puzzle solving. Greatest moment revolved around interrogating some NPC or trying to keep up with a dog who caught the scent.
MMOs only make their "game" around combat, they never make any other "game" around negotiation, puzzle solving, chasing, climbing, jumping, mental abilities or focus skills, playing music, training your pet etc. The closest MMOs ever venture into is crafting or lock picking which 99% of the time is progress bar you click on or a "lock pikcing game" that took 2 days to put together in Unity.
When you make an MMO where "combat" is only 10% of the game and all the other skills are part of the quests and have their own mini game with as much production value as you put into the combat engine, you'll have a winner
Maybe let's drop the "real RPG" stuff? It's a bit like going onto a car forum, and mentioning your "real Mustang" (a horse) in a conversation that's clearly about Ford Mustangs.
Ford Mustangs are still real.
Videogame RPGs are still real. And for 35+ years they've been combat-focused.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Can we open up that top selling titles link and just observe how wrong that statement just was?
A good one third of the titles are non-combat, with a further portion being mixed. Even on the PC titles alone, of the 16 titles, 6 of them lack combat as a focus, while another three offer a lot of other game mechanics outside of the combat. Half the games on the PC aren't even dwelling on so much combat as a result, more if you consider that most of those titles have non-combat activities and a good chunk of their interesting gameplay takes place outside of the combat itself.
Video game RPGs run the gamut, and they've offered a variety of gameplay options over time. Even when "combat-focused" they have given a good showing of alternative and supporting non-combat mechanics.
To which there is the extended point that things shouldn't lay stagnant. The idea "That's our our great granaddy did it" by no means dictates that we should still be back in the stone age pushing rocks on logs because the wheel isn't how their ancestors made transportation.
It's luddite logic. Things progress, not only that, but the progress made in a genre like video game RPGs isn't even dramatic progress we are talking about, but recapturing content that had to be sacrificed to the early and limited days of hardware and gaming.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Comments
When I played real RPGs back in the day, the funest parts weren't combat. Their were quests revolved around mystery solving, treasure hunting and puzzle solving. Greatest moment revolved around interrogating some NPC or trying to keep up with a dog who caught the scent.
MMOs only make their "game" around combat, they never make any other "game" around negotiation, puzzle solving, chasing, climbing, jumping, mental abilities or focus skills, playing music, training your pet etc. The closest MMOs ever venture into is crafting or lock picking which 99% of the time is progress bar you click on or a "lock pikcing game" that took 2 days to put together in Unity.
When you make an MMO where "combat" is only 10% of the game and all the other skills are part of the quests and have their own mini game with as much production value as you put into the combat engine, you'll have a winner
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
Ford Mustangs are still real.
Videogame RPGs are still real. And for 35+ years they've been combat-focused.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
A good one third of the titles are non-combat, with a further portion being mixed. Even on the PC titles alone, of the 16 titles, 6 of them lack combat as a focus, while another three offer a lot of other game mechanics outside of the combat. Half the games on the PC aren't even dwelling on so much combat as a result, more if you consider that most of those titles have non-combat activities and a good chunk of their interesting gameplay takes place outside of the combat itself.
Video game RPGs run the gamut, and they've offered a variety of gameplay options over time. Even when "combat-focused" they have given a good showing of alternative and supporting non-combat mechanics.
To which there is the extended point that things shouldn't lay stagnant. The idea "That's our our great granaddy did it" by no means dictates that we should still be back in the stone age pushing rocks on logs because the wheel isn't how their ancestors made transportation.
It's luddite logic. Things progress, not only that, but the progress made in a genre like video game RPGs isn't even dramatic progress we are talking about, but recapturing content that had to be sacrificed to the early and limited days of hardware and gaming.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin