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RPGs vs FPS games, or Why I'm Tired of Killing Rabbits
Mylon
Member Posts: 975
I've been wanting a good RPG (or MMORPG) to play for a good long time now, but I have not yet found one that can keep me entertained. Yet, it's so very easy to hop into an FPS game, get a few kills, and get my rocks off. Why is this? The tutorial phase.
In RPGs, so often you start off the little whelp that can barely wield a sword that runs tons of small and petty errands and eventually become the hero that saves the world (or in MMORPGs, the guy that slew the monster that was just minding it's own business in its own cave). Saving little Johnny from the goblin kidnappers gets awfully boring after a while.
Contrast this to FPS games where (typically), you're given a rifle from the get go, a tool of instant lethality and have to fight for survival every step of the way in one frantic scrap to save, well, the world. You don't have to work your way up to wield Excalibur, you get it at the start and the game is more about using it than "earning" it. Well, more arcady shooters still have the giant gun you don't get into well into the game, but for the most part they're glitz and glamor, the basic gun still does the job quite well.
Back to RPGs, I start off killing goblins, orcs, small time bandits, and whatever else. Often these starter creatures pose little to no challenge, as a kind of way to ween someone's teeth and get them used to the game. Only, I got used to the game 20 hours ago, but I'm still doing the same boring crap.
In short, RPGs need to cut out this forced tutorial stuff. Many people might say that the real game begins at max level. Yeah, well if that's the case, why did I have to pay $50 _and_ play for 300+ hours before I could play the real game? I'll have put it down well before I hit that marker and learned to avoid similar games. Many people might say that the grind up to max level is required to learn how to play a character at max level. I call bull. I could learn how to play a max level character in a couple of hours, master it after perhaps a week of solid playing. And there are plenty of people that can point out some max level people and accuse them of still not knowing how to play, so that argument is pretty moot.
In short, I'm tired of killing rabbits. Let me skip right to the important stuff and experience the game at my own pace, not at the slow metered pace of whatever grinding treadmill that starts at 1 mile per hour and works its way up to the more difficult settings. FPS games give me a weapon of lethality at the start, pit me against lethal enemies, and there's a lot less silly saving of stablehands and more of saving the world.
Comments
With mmos at least it all comes down to the bottom line, especially if it's a subscription based busyness model. They want you to play because you pay. And the longer you play the more you pay. I guess eventually the industry will start making a broader range of games with varying ideals and philosophies and eventually all of us will manage to find a game that suits us like a well tailored suit. Until then, we're either going to have to put up with it or not bother and just do something else.
You can always stop gaming and do what I do, pursue sinful pleasures of the flesh
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
Well, it's a pretty big difference between RPG's and MMORPG's.
If you're talking strictly MMO's, I would agree with you. It seems many a developer has fallen into the trap to start new players off by killing tiny rabbits to eventually work your way up to killing... larger rabbits.
RPG's on the other hand; I've found have started to do away with some of that and have been much smarter in their progression steps. I think Mass Affect is a really good example of this; while you certainly do progress in weapons, armor and skill throughout the game, you're still pretty tough when you start off.
But do keep in mind that RPG's have traditionally been about player development, it's what many fans expect. You take your character and build him/her up how you would like, so by their very own nature they are not pop-and-go type games, like a FPS might be for example.
Important Information regarding Posting and You
Shhhhh.........be berry, berry quite. I'm hunting wabbits.
Well there is a game coming out called Too Human. It's an Action/RPG where you take the role of a very powerful god i believe. You can advance your char by gathering loot and mixing and matching weapon styles from what I've heard. If you have an Xbox 360 I'd suggest you download the demo (It's free) and try it out, it's supposidly very good.
Try Guild Wars. For PvP, there is nearly zero itemization or level grind. You can freely create max level toons of any class combo with any gear you've unlocked. Unlocking these things is fairly easy and can be done through only PvP'ing. For PvE, the grinds in these two areas is still nearly nil. Getting to 20 is really just a formality, especially in the later campaigns.
The only thing to note about Guild Wars is that its emphasis is different. Its PvP is almost entirely Arena PvP, though they do it much better than anybody else. For PvE, it primarily takes the shape of instanced, story-based missions. I actually prefer these to the usual bullshit you see in MMORPG's.
I do get your point, though. FPS's deliver far better story experiences than MMORPG's, to be quite frank. I'd take any game in the Jedi Knight series over SWG.
WoW is the perfect example of this. Boars at level 1 and Shadow Boars at level 70. major /yawn.
They are called Shard-Hide Boars, thank you very much, and yeah, you're totally right. I do think WoW has more variety while leveling than any other fantasy MMORPG's, though. They do have plenty of the same-old, same-old shit, but they mix it up a bit with odd or interesting groups of enemy. Those are pretty rare, though, and they even tend to overuse those. For instance, I did think it was pretty cool to see the fighting with the demons when I first entered Outland. By the time I hit 70, though, demons in general just became another kind of filler enemy. May as well have just been boars.
Its all about the LORE, WoW gots lots of LORE.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Didn't WoW fubar the lore quite badly from what it was in the original war craft stuff?
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
Warcraft's lore was half plagiarized from warhammer and half run of the mill fantasy.
WoW did butcher the lore, it went from a pretty straightforward horde/alliance War to having blue space aliens, dragon-gods in hibernation, a seperate dimensional plane...strangeness
I really dont MMORPGs myself. Played UO from like 97-00. That was it. Had a 3 year run with planetside before the FPS aspect of that game got too lame to be considered a shooter, and the pops got too low for it to be an MMO. It's been online shooters for while now. FEAR and BF2142 are two of my favourites.
I just come here for the off topic section and to watch Darkfall continue to not come out.
If you cant decide between the two, you can always try and get a fps with a storyline, or a rpg with fps aspects. For a rpg with gears of war style combat, try getting Mass Effect. If your looking for a first-person shooter with a storyline, you have quite a few options. Bioshock for example is a very solid fps with a decent plotline to go with it.
Or. If you like getting thrown into the action quite quickly, you could try a game like Devil May cry 4, or a game like Ninja Gaiden 2. You dont start off particulary weak in either of those games.
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Nagel, it's not the first person gameplay that interests me so much with how it is presented. I seem to be able to hop into flash games quickly and enjoy those as well, but that is primarily because they get to the point! MMORPGs focus so much on putting around and doing all of this nonsense before the real quest begins. As another poster said, this was a lot to do with getting subscription fees.
And another posted recommended Guild Wars. If you notice in my signature, I have played and greatly enjoyed Guild Wars. I thought it was a great game. It got tired after a while, particularly how more skills didn't really help and the titles were such a petty grind if one actively pursued them. But the basic game was direct and fun and the PvP (at least, the more casual parts) was definitely easy to get into (GvG seemed like a miracle to get 8 people to participate, much less cooperate. And the blow to morale from a loss, well... Not very friendly for casual play).
I love FPS just wish they would vary more. Most just give ya a gun and some targets. I like the mods for half life 2 you can find some original ones here and there thats not trying to be counterstrike 3.0 but rather they just fun to play
I enjoy developing my toon and the journey.
Once I reach end game, if there is no further development besides grinding for loot, I try another game.
Also, killing feral rabbits and rats is good for the environment.
Ever play PreCU SWG? And if so what did you think of it?
It was godly. Nothing else need be said.
Basically what you're looking for is an RPG without levels. Skill-based is what they call that. There really aren't any yet, since the in thing at the moment is mimicking WoW, for better or worse.
You can't maintain a logical leveling system and begin at Level 1 with the same abilities as someone who is Level 30. There would be no sense of progression unless you raised the abilities available at Level 30 that much higher to compensate. And that, of course, would leave you with the exact same problem as when you started. A level 1 who is unable to tackle level 30 opponents.
So you remove the levels altogether, and pit the player against more realistic opponents and scenarios, advancing in skills and abilities instead of vital statistics and such. One random example of that system is the Shadowrun pen-and-paper rpg.
No, I did not get the chance to play pre-CU SWG. I do think I really missed out, however, as I heard a lot of good things about it.
As for Skill-based games, I do think skill based games would be better able to hold my attention, because even if just grinding for "levels", there would be tons of stuff to work on at any given time and improvements would come as each individual one reaches its next checkpoint rather than waiting for the almighty and all powerful level to arrive, and then be bored for the remaining time while waiting for the next one.
However, skill-based is just one aspect. I really want a game to take a stab at a more compelling world instead of the current theme-park design where monsters wander around in a level-range zone and wait to be killed so people can get on to the next area. Saving the world might be a bit too much for an MMORPG with 30,000* other people doing it on a regular basis, but I am tired of doing all of the silly petty quests. A lot of MMOs offer plenty of epic-style content, but I'll never get to see it because they enforce a kind of tutorial upon the player.
* Why 30,000? Well, this is the real population of any MMO (with the exception of Eve). WoW may claim millions of subscribers, but the truth of the matter is they open a new sever for every 20,000-30,000 players like everyone else, so the player base is merely more fractured than it is for any other game.