Gothic 1-3 were great, and soon Risen And of course Baldurs Gate and Fallout )
Hmm, i am kind of with you on this :-)
Gothic 1 is a fantastic sandbox open world RPG ,better than Morrowind (i like morrowind) but for me Gothic 1 kicks it's butt.
Gothic 2 is nearly as good but with better graphics.
Gothic 2 "The Night Of The Raven" kicks every single RPG out there in to touch,seriously this RPG is an epic and puts Oblivion and BioWare RPG games(inclding KOTOR) TO shame.
Baldur's Gate was a great rpg just as Baldur's gate 2 was.
Fallout 1-2 are good games but i found FallOut 3 to be pretty boring.
Mass Effect is a good RPG but again i found it to be pretty restrictive, loads of desolate worlds and 'ground hog day' gameplay.
Gothic 4 is coming out in 8 weeks but it's not the same dev team,they are making 'Risen'(which you know :-) which will be out in 8 weeks as well.
I like a great RPG but their is nothing better than a great working mmorpg. That feeling of being in a massive world with other players is a great feeling, especially if the game has a mature crowd.
Ugh, Oblivion. Oblivion wasnt half the rpg that Morrowind was. That killed your whole post for me.
That doesn't even makes sense... there is a Mod that adds the morrowind areas to oblivion.
Seriously a heavily + well moded oblivion is the best single-player rpg game on the market. Just too many morons try to play it vanilla. (and then wonder why it sucks)
Since Moding isn't easy I guess its a noob filter of sorts.
MMO's cannot compete with solo rpgs where 'you' are the hero.
LotRo and AoC did well with the idea of players as a group or individualy having a destiny unfold. But it is hard for a MMO to truely shine in this playstyle when compaired to a solo game.
That doesn't even makes sense... there is a Mod that adds the morrowind areas to oblivion. Seriously a heavily + well moded oblivion is the best single-player rpg game on the market. Just too many morons try to play it vanilla. (and then wonder why it sucks) Since Moding isn't easy I guess its a noob filter of sorts.
If you have to mod a game to make it fun, the it wasn't a well designed game in the first place.
That does not some how magically make the un-modded game better. On the contrary, if you need to mod a game to make it fun then something is seriously wrong with the original content.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Different strokes for different folks. For some RPGers, storyline is vital. They want to feel that they are doing something important with their time; more so than (for example) just having a contrived and pointless reason for killing 10 generic boars that respawn endlessly. They want to be the hero (or villain) of the story. They want to change the (virtual) world. This is fine in single-player RPGs (or ARPGs like Oblivion) because they are built to support that purpose. MMOGs aren't designed to handle this for obvious reasons; you can't have 10000 "chosen ones" running around together and the more instancing that you cram into an MMOG, the less immersive it feels. The majority of MMOGers don't seem to be RPG fans at all, and only see levelling/questing as a means to an end(game) where they can start to cooperate-and-compete with other players in prescripted PvE content (i.e. themeparks) and PvP/RvR. Many of them would happily choose to grind mobs from level 1-to-a-hundred if it was a more time-efficient method of progression. It's the Facebook generation; people who play with friends or make friends with those they play with. They don't care much about pre-written fictional lore and/or stories because, for them, other people are their story/lore. These two groups of players are pretty different, and it's clear (to me at least) that the MMORPG genre has been catering to the latter group rather than the former for the past ~10 years or so and that's understandable from a business perspective; there are a lot more generic gamers than there are RPGers. Oh, and Oblivion kinda sucks. If you can stand the graphical devolution, give Morrowind a try, it's a much better RPG.
This is really a quite good post. I tend to agree with almost all of it.
The only thing i would pull up is that the facebook generation quip, 10 years ago, long before facebook, Everquest was exactly the same, the Lore was not a part of it for many people, the guilds, the raids were a part of the game. So while I think your premise is entirely correct, I don't think it has been limited to some new generation.
Just to note, in case it was not mentioned in the last 7 pages....Oblivion Vanilla is BORING.
Oblivion modded, however.....wowza! You can add just about anything to the world, and it becomes this amazing place! (Think Natural Landscapes). But yeah, in the end... its not multiplayer.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
I have tried to play it on numerous occasions and I have just never been able to get past a few measly hours of playing. It is not even like I can put my finger on what i don't like, I have even thought about loading it up again after reading this thread and giving it another go, but then i remember how bored i got with it the last time and think its probably not worth it.
No just wait you guys. Wait until <insert upcoming MMO here that has tricked its followers into thinking its not a level/gear grinder when it really is> comes out. Its got lots of potential and will hurt WoW for a little bit!
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!
Well ... uh. I really dont remember any swords in the stone or mysteries at the bottom of haunted crypts in Oblivion either.
The best MMO title I know of is Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and that one beats Oblivion in really every respect but graphics; but even in respect to graphics it has some crucial advantages (extreme viewing distances, much easier to use character editor which also allows to individualize the body, not just the face).
There is some lore in Oblivion but you really have to search for it explicitly.
If we talk about standards for gameplay quality, I would mention The Witcher, or the upcoming title Dragon Age.
And for MMOs, theres always the new title "Star Wars: The Old Republic" which might be different and offer much of the swords in stone stuff, albeit in a Star Wars world.
Comments
Hmm, i am kind of with you on this :-)
Gothic 1 is a fantastic sandbox open world RPG ,better than Morrowind (i like morrowind) but for me Gothic 1 kicks it's butt.
Gothic 2 is nearly as good but with better graphics.
Gothic 2 "The Night Of The Raven" kicks every single RPG out there in to touch,seriously this RPG is an epic and puts Oblivion and BioWare RPG games(inclding KOTOR) TO shame.
Baldur's Gate was a great rpg just as Baldur's gate 2 was.
Fallout 1-2 are good games but i found FallOut 3 to be pretty boring.
Mass Effect is a good RPG but again i found it to be pretty restrictive, loads of desolate worlds and 'ground hog day' gameplay.
Gothic 4 is coming out in 8 weeks but it's not the same dev team,they are making 'Risen'(which you know :-) which will be out in 8 weeks as well.
Risen.. looks great.
www.jeuxvideo.com/gaming_live/0000/00002739/risen_1_2_l_intelligence_artificielle_f1q1.htm
www.jeuxvideo.com/gaming_live/0000/00002740/risen_2_2_les_interactions_avec_l_univers_f1q1.htm
Why u would even compare the two obviously different game styles, (MMO vs. SP) makes ur post worthless for me to even waste time reading.
I played Oblivion for 3 weeks, and was extremely bored of it. Its basically the same action over and over again.
I've been playing MMOs for 9 years now. No contest. Its the interaction with other players that make MMOs strive, imo.
I like a great RPG but their is nothing better than a great working mmorpg. That feeling of being in a massive world with other players is a great feeling, especially if the game has a mature crowd.
Ugh, Oblivion. Oblivion wasnt half the rpg that Morrowind was.
That killed your whole post for me.
Totally agree, we already have many MMOs as shallow and half-assed as Oblivion already...
That doesn't even makes sense... there is a Mod that adds the morrowind areas to oblivion.
Seriously a heavily + well moded oblivion is the best single-player rpg game on the market. Just too many morons try to play it vanilla. (and then wonder why it sucks)
Since Moding isn't easy I guess its a noob filter of sorts.
MMO's cannot compete with solo rpgs where 'you' are the hero.
LotRo and AoC did well with the idea of players as a group or individualy having a destiny unfold. But it is hard for a MMO to truely shine in this playstyle when compaired to a solo game.
If you have to mod a game to make it fun, the it wasn't a well designed game in the first place.
That does not some how magically make the un-modded game better. On the contrary, if you need to mod a game to make it fun then something is seriously wrong with the original content.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
This is really a quite good post. I tend to agree with almost all of it.
The only thing i would pull up is that the facebook generation quip, 10 years ago, long before facebook, Everquest was exactly the same, the Lore was not a part of it for many people, the guilds, the raids were a part of the game. So while I think your premise is entirely correct, I don't think it has been limited to some new generation.
Just to note, in case it was not mentioned in the last 7 pages....Oblivion Vanilla is BORING.
Oblivion modded, however.....wowza! You can add just about anything to the world, and it becomes this amazing place! (Think Natural Landscapes). But yeah, in the end... its not multiplayer.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
I never liked Oblivion.
I have tried to play it on numerous occasions and I have just never been able to get past a few measly hours of playing. It is not even like I can put my finger on what i don't like, I have even thought about loading it up again after reading this thread and giving it another go, but then i remember how bored i got with it the last time and think its probably not worth it.
No just wait you guys. Wait until <insert upcoming MMO here that has tricked its followers into thinking its not a level/gear grinder when it really is> comes out. Its got lots of potential and will hurt WoW for a little bit!
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!
Well ... uh. I really dont remember any swords in the stone or mysteries at the bottom of haunted crypts in Oblivion either.
The best MMO title I know of is Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and that one beats Oblivion in really every respect but graphics; but even in respect to graphics it has some crucial advantages (extreme viewing distances, much easier to use character editor which also allows to individualize the body, not just the face).
There is some lore in Oblivion but you really have to search for it explicitly.
If we talk about standards for gameplay quality, I would mention The Witcher, or the upcoming title Dragon Age.
And for MMOs, theres always the new title "Star Wars: The Old Republic" which might be different and offer much of the swords in stone stuff, albeit in a Star Wars world.