The Japanese should not make RPGs.

[Stark]

Yeah, farming battle armours on RAM ships let you get super dooper power armour with shields after the second mission. A few side quests and rocket launchers/plasma throwers later, and the game is completely broken. "Lunarian needle guns" have nothing on launchers - but by lategame you absolutely needed them, because it was your six dudes against 30+ badguys (or half a dozen nigh-invincible robots).

Rings of Power had some serious problems, but it was completely freeform and quite hands-off, letting you work shit out for yourself. Of course, I was 10, and if there hadn't been a walkthru in the manual I'd have been boned on several of the ring quests. It had a wraparound map (hilariously the north and south poles wrapped around too ) vehicles, food management, and staggeringly difficult puzzles.

Starflight took that idea WAAAAY too far. Almost no instruction at all, a few dozen planets out of thousands had useful things on them... that you had to FIND or already know the general area of. Again, without the walkthrough provided I would probably never have got anywhere - but the planetside tank driving parts were awesome. Fit pontoons! Fit ice-skates! Dig in to avoid storms! Hopelessly inaccurate 'mineral scan' that didn't update to remove minerals you'd already extracted and had to stop to use!

[Cao Cao]

For real old times sake, Buck Rogers:Countdown to Doomsday on DOS

Yikes. I remember playing the Megadrive version of that a long time ago. It was quite fun.

Aye, the graphics even for the time were pretty poor, but the game was fun. It was one of the final evolutions of the old Gold Box games like Curse of the Azure Bonds, Pools of Radiance and other similiar titles.

Personally I liked it's minimalist graphics, like you walk into an empty room and it'll say "you see a bar filled with seedy space scum" or something like that. In a way it was like reading a book - it left things to the imagination.

[VF5SS]

JRPG does this! WRPG does this!

[General Zod]

JRPG does this! WRPG does this!

It's funny cause it's true.

[18-Till-I-Die]

JRPG does this! WRPG does this!

I dont get it. Whats a WRPG? Western RPG?

So...what Japanese RPGs are better cause...they have pretty pictures and music?

Give some context for those of us who dont speak webcomic.

[VF5SS]

I'm pretty sure this thread has enough context for you. Otherwise, *whoosh.*

[Xisiqomelir]

Whats a WRPG?

jRPG: Here is a giant dragon w/ 5E7 hitpoints, you'd better start abusing the combat mechanics if you want to win.

wRPG: Here are orphans.

KILL THE ORPHANS -> Evil

SAVE THE ORPHANS -> Good

[Mobius]

Couldn't we enslave the orphans? like any members of the slave guild would do :p

[Andrew_Fireborn]

*Is covered in orphan blood, oprhanage burns in the distance.* What? They attacked me first! Kept yelling some weird battle cry of "daddy" or something...



But yeah, while I like the concept of video games playing more like pen & paper RPGs, such things really, really lay on the quality of the GM. And most every sandbox game I've played has either been random fighting with a limited selection of missions to provide actual progress, or a huge directionless world which is too big and open for it's own good. (IE, little change can actually happen, generic NPC itis, etc)

[NeoGoomba]

Only if you kill the owner of the orphanarium in a stealth manner, either by dropping a chandelier on him, or by causing the orphans to tear him apart by casting a blood lust spell on them.

Sethis wouldn't have it any other way!

[Stark]

You mean resolving it in the three acceptable ways - others will either make no sense storywise or will actually break the game and ruin your save. In any case, your decision will have almost no actual game effect: a bar will move slightly, and perhaps two or three lines of dialogue will change. Wow.

The illusion of flexibility is very common, and almost always completely useless. Even very freeform games like Oblivion have very little scope for honest-to-god flexibility. You either complete quests success/fail, or you don't - the end.

[Cao Cao]

It's true that the type of flexibility RPG players crave is all but non-existant. Still, I prefer some illusion of personal choice over JRPG style narratives - especially when it comes to character selection.
I am so sick of angsty 14-18 year old sword using boys who fight the Evil Empire and protect their obnoxious and quite useless girlfriends who has The Magic Amulet/is the last of an ancient race/is an angel/all of the above.

[Lusankya]

I am so sick of angsty 14-18 year old sword using boys who fight the Evil Empire and protect their obnoxious and quite useless girlfriends who has The Magic Amulet/is the last of an ancient race/is an angel/all of the above.

See, I happen to find the angsty 14-18 boys with gimongous sword-like phallic symbols attractive, in general. Attractive enough, even, that I generally end up playing one even in a pen and paper RPG.

Generally I find the illusion of choice to be annoying in RPGs as well. I spend way too long agonising over whether or not I think the small dialogue choices I make suit the personality that I've given to the main character. I also hate the "look, you can be evil if you want" games, because, as people have said, the "evil" choice is generally the "be a dick for no reason" choice. I even hate making my own character in CRPGs - I can never think of them as more than a collection of stats. At least in a JRPG, they're "the main character", even if they're mutes called McHero, because the game designers didn't give them a default name.

The only game in which I've particularly liked the illusion of choice was Bard's Tale, where the choice was to be snarky, or slightly less snarky. That was fun, especially after the little goblin dude gave me a 1000% markup on crossing the river because I was rude to him.

[Vendetta]

You mean resolving it in the three acceptable ways - others will either make no sense storywise or will actually break the game and ruin your save. In any case, your decision will have almost no actual game effect: a bar will move slightly, and perhaps two or three lines of dialogue will change. Wow.

You're forgetting that the reward for the "good" choice will be slightly but perceptibly better than all the others.

[Cao Cao]

See, I happen to find the angsty 14-18 boys with gimongous sword-like phallic symbols attractive, in general. Attractive enough, even, that I generally end up playing one even in a pen and paper RPG.

Well it's all well and good if you like that sort of character, however the J-RPG market it saturated with such leads. I like variety, that's why when I play J-RPGs I'm drawn towards games like Valkyrie Profile and Disgaea just because they break the mold.

Generally I find the illusion of choice to be annoying in RPGs as well. I spend way too long agonising over whether or not I think the small dialogue choices I make suit the personality that I've given to the main character. I also hate the "look, you can be evil if you want" games, because, as people have said, the "evil" choice is generally the "be a dick for no reason" choice. I even hate making my own character in CRPGs - I can never think of them as more than a collection of stats. At least in a JRPG, they're "the main character", even if they're mutes called McHero, because the game designers didn't give them a default name.

Still as I said variety is good.
For example, a guard is blocking the way to somewhere you want to go.
In a J-RPG you must do whatever quest the guard wants you to do in order to pass.
In a CRPG, you can do the guard's quest or you can kill him or you can bribe him or talk your way through.
Now, both games may make you jump through hoops in terms of the plot, but a CRPG will at least give you a choice about which hoop to jump through.

[Starglider]

Even very freeform games like Oblivion have very little scope for honest-to-god flexibility. You either complete quests success/fail, or you don't - the end.

The 'procedural content generation' trend combined with AI agent research will eventually get to the point of doing decent dynamic plots (along a general template) and true flexibility. Right now it's at the 'some interesting limited demonstrators' stage. It is technically possible with a lot more work, I've done a bit of work on this myself and I know people who are a lot more into it. The economic pressure is there in trying to reduce game dev. costs and particularly from MMORPGs that need huge amounts of mediocre content to keep players interested. Games companies aren't going to do basic research though and they're relatively reluctant to try out new high-risk technologies (particularly when they don't produce flashy screenshots), so it'll be a while yet.

EDIT: One of the reasons dynamic content and emergent systems in general aren't seen much in games is that modern games are already a bitch to test (the inevitable insane schedule and last minute changes don't help) and the more potential for variety you put in the harder it is to test properly ('ensure the quality of the user experience' in corporatespeak - plus writers tend to be control freaks). The solution to this is more AI; specifically more sophisticated test automation that can play the game repeatedly and check for glitches/failures. Ideally you'd use Eurisko-style analytic AI to check for exploits/game mechanic loopholes as much as possible too. But again, while all this is possible in principle, it's going to take a lot more research and engineering work to bring it to the market.

[Thunderfire]

For example, a guard is blocking the way to somewhere you want to go.
In a J-RPG you must do whatever quest the guard wants you to do in order to pass.
In a CRPG, you can do the guard's quest or you can kill him or you can bribe him or talk your way through.
Now, both games may make you jump through hoops in terms of the plot, but a CRPG will at least give you a choice about which hoop to jump through.

Many CRPGs use railroading too and some J-RPGs have multiple solutions to a quest. The FF-Type games are interactive movies/stories and several CRPGs are tactical combat games.

[Lusankya]

See, I happen to find the angsty 14-18 boys with gimongous sword-like phallic symbols attractive, in general. Attractive enough, even, that I generally end up playing one even in a pen and paper RPG.

Well it's all well and good if you like that sort of character, however the J-RPG market it saturated with such leads. I like variety, that's why when I play J-RPGs I'm drawn towards games like Valkyrie Profile and Disgaea just because they break the mold.

Note that I'm a young single woman who likes to read Shoujo manga. I don't expect everyone to be like me.

[Stark]

You're forgetting that the reward for the "good" choice will be slightly but perceptibly better than all the others.

Ah, you reminded me - the only 'flexibility' will be binary on/off: there are 'good missions' and 'good dialog', and if you do 'bad' things you take a penalty AND miss out of some content (getting 'bad content' instead, which is almost always less), based solely on the current reading on your 'reputation stat'. If you later buff it back up by farming badguys, everyone will again offer 'good missions' and 'good dialog', even though you're a mass murderer who gunned down the orphans and raped 18 nuns. That's all in the past - only the rep stat matters.

Starglider, my background isn't in code but I've often mused on a more dynamic method of content in RPGs. Not fully procedural - like using simple forms to build dialog that actually makes sense, rather than pre-written stuff that is thrown out when the flags are right. For instance, I'm playing Oblivion on 360 at the moment, and I'm finishing missions in very unorthodox ways... but all the 'x mission ended like y' dialog you get totally ignores it. They'll talk about me doing something I didn't do because I took a totally different approach - all the dialog is just 'mission 124 finished, say blah'. It's weak, and the whole game is already built on tables, so building dialog based on what actually happened should be possible in generalities.

[Starglider]

It's weak, and the whole game is already built on tables, so building dialog based on what actually happened should be possible in generalities.

Generalities yes, but it doesn't make economic sense to put the development effort into this, instead of longer linear quests (and how many gamers just follow the instructions on GameFAQs?) or into shinier graphics. Relatively predictable table-based generation cuts down the extra testing overhead to something manageable, but from personal experience it's still tough to get the writers to break out of 'I'm an epic novelist who just happens to be employed as a tech writer' mode and into 'create 500 different bite sized event descriptions and trust the programmers to string them together'.

Open source might be better at this, but making a game using a load of part-time no-obligation open source people is damn near impossible (as evidenced by the tiny number of 'full size' multi-contributor open source games compared to the number of open source apps/toolkits/operating systems/etc). Plus open source is usually better for cloning existing technology that everyone involved understands, rather than doing anything radically new where communications barriers are magnified. I was hoping my old MMORPG startup would provide the tools for doing this kind of thing, but alas it was not to be.

I'm finishing missions in very unorthodox ways...

Gracefully handling genuine unorthodoxy (i.e. stuff the programmers didn't and possibly couldn't plan for) is going to require advanced AI. Really it requires a kind of AI we don't usually see in games; an overall 'player experience control' system, that influences task difficulty, plot generation, NPC placement/attitude etc to maximise game enjoyment (based on your apparent style, skill, what you spend time on etc). Taming the emergent systems you get when you stick hundreds to thousands of AI agents in a setting and then let the player mess around with it really requires this sort of 'gamemaster' AI.

[Stark]

'Unorthodox' in RPGs is still quite limited - my point is making it better than 'one single dialog response to mission completed' shouldn't be too hard. When missions are based on things picked up or not, people killed or not and other simple often binary conditions, you don't need to build dialog that describes the whole mission, rather simply not referring to alive people as dead etc.

But hey, mission scripting is still so dodgey that it's often possible to do objectives in the wrong order, thus breaking the mission. Don't pick up the key before you get told to! Your point about development is well taken - the essentially linear nature of overarcing storylines and progression shows that even most WRPGs are trying to 'tell a story' rather than provide a sandbox to allow people to do what they want. How many ways is there to become fighters guild boss? ONE.

[Starglider]

Another problem with open ended stuff, at least for open source, is programming it is simply boring. You could create 500 little events and string them together, but that takes a long time of just tedious coding,

That's a tools issue. Currently you have to do tedious scripting to string them together and allow for all the contingencies. Decent procedural content generation would do it for you based on abstract plot templates, which the system should be able to combine (directly or as subplots) sensibly. My start-up is working on automated generation of application code from abstract specs right now. Generating game scripting from plot templates isn't that different a problem, actually I'd quite like to take it on, but the games industry is not a good place for a start up to be.

Ditto for multiple branches in storylines - it can be coded, but it would get messy and repetitive fast: messy means buggy and repetitive means boring. The end result: probably nothing, and if it is done, it will be bug ridden.

There are plenty of obsessive compulsive people out there prepared to do this the hard way; you can see it in some of the Neverwinter Nights modules and Baldur's Gate mods. But getting them to work together on a single vision (yours, presumably) until its done is very difficult.

And while I will probably never see it, what could be so much cooler if you did have a choice was if you actually had hard choices, and being evil isn't just being a dick - it is being good to be trusted, then backstabbing for optimal damage! Muahaha.

As Stark said, the 'reputation stat' is a silly and near-worthless concept. NPCs should have properly modelled, albeit simple knowledge bases; they've either heard about various game events or they haven't, and they have particular expectations about the character generated by taking the most plausible model that explains the character's actions (which would be 'dangerous lunatic' if you kill lots of orphans then try to make up for it by being really nice for a week).

[Jade Falcon]

Arcanum for all that it was a bit 'broken' had the choices in as much that you could follow the magic path or the technological path. I haven't played far enough into it to see if it makes a significant difference to the story though.

[Stark]

Also, writing an official strategy guide for such a beast would be another exercise in futility.

Such things are silly anyway.

And while I will probably never see it, what could be so much cooler if you did have a choice was if you actually had hard choices, and being evil isn't just being a dick - it is being good to be trusted, then backstabbing for optimal damage! Muahaha.

More abstract games like business or military strategy games have been doing that sort of thing for ages, but at a more personal level like an RPG I think you're right and it's just a content issue. I've been uninterested in reading some lame programmer's idea of fiction since I was sixteen and played FF7. I guess I'm more interested in the idea of a social simulator than 'follow the scripting' fedex questing. Of course, this is much easier in a strategy game with 6-10 individuals than an RPG with likely thousands (even if many can be abstracted, ie by town, organisation, etc).

[DPDarkPrimus]

I started playing Steambot Chronicles a few days ago. While it's not more of an adventure game than an RPG, it was made by a Japanese company, yet it's got options for dialog for just about every one of your character's responses to anything. Even when meeting people, you have four or five options. It's nice to be able to hit on the hot chick right when you first meet her and tell some chump who got dumped by a girl that he had it coming.