The Future of RPGs

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So, what do we think on the matter? Who will be the main players of RPG development now? Will console RPGs take over, hardcore RPGs come back into fashion, or hack 'n' slash continue in its miserable existance? Will they get better or worse?

I'm thinking that Bioware will now take over most of the market, now that BIS has been SACKED in favour of console titles, but Obsidian is showing potential. There's also Troika, but TOEE seems to be being regarded as a flop.

Console action games with RPG elements (in short, console RPGs) are rearing their ugly heads once again, with the few hundred Dark Alliance and FOS sequels staged to come out if Interplay doesn't die rather quickly (May they be speeded to the grave...). Deep and wonderful RPGs have pretty much disappeared in favour of hack 'n' slash, which seems to be the best way to pump out eye candy games without much substance.

 

The RPG will follow the market, or the money in the business, and this will likely follow now the action console rpg (which IMO are not rpg's).

It may even be the case that we will have a cold era on rpg gaming for the pc. We had one before, that changed when baldur's gate came out. I think it will cool down for a few years. In about 5 or more years we will have another groundbreaking rpg, but not before.

Of course this is all speculations from my side, and it looks pretty grim, but maybe it's even for the best.

 

The problem is that even if a new RPG is sub-standard, all the RPG community will go out and buy it anyway. So where's the monetary incnetive to build a really great one that you play again and again. In fact, replayability is bad for the games industry because then they sell less other games (because people are still playing the old ones).

 

I was just wondering the same thing over the last few days. What will be the next thing? I've played all the BI stuff, I'm not interested in much else except for that Greyhawk game I can't play anyway because the requirements. I've even started a PnP campaign with some friends.

Things look bad for a while but if you've been playing RPGs for a while you know things come and go. Fable looks awesome, and I can't wait to play it. Morrowind looked good, too, but frankly the gameplay is flat and its too monotonous. There's just something missing from non-turn-based combat, even if the "turns" are imperceptible.

Personally, I think the glory days are behind us as far as CRPGs go. Thats not a bad thing, its just where things are at right now. I just started BGI again just to have that feeling that is the closest thing CRPG has provided to PnP, and it brings back memories from six years ago when I first bought it after seeing "Forgotten Realms" on a PC game box.

Who would have thought a computer game from six years ago would still be so devotely followed? Yeah, there are others, like Mario crap, but c'mon.

 

Look for shareware and the like... If graphics are not that important to you, check out the Avernum trilogy. The games are sorta like a mixture between ultima 5 and the old gold-box d&d games. Very old school, but very fun. Cheap too. I bought all three for $57 US and they were mailed to me within three days. Plus I had a short e-mail correspondence with the writer. Definitely had that small-business charm.

 

You people pretty much said it all. The good thing about black isle is that the people working with them were out to make a great game everyone could appreciate and enjoy, not just a quick buck. That, I think, is the problem with many of the rpg-producing game companies today(not mentinoning any names). And my word on console games, they are cheap "eye candy" as someone in this thread has already said, I couldnt agree with him more! Producers these days want money, not good games and happy customers. What they dont realize is that they'd likely get more (and happier) customers if they put some time and effort into their games. Invest alot, risk alot, and make a game people can be proud of, not another flop! If anyone decides to buy the rights to the title of Baldur's Gate and continue the saga, for goodness-bloody-sake let it not be another cheap money grabbing piece of crap!

 

The future of RPGs has been a current problems for several years. When the first FPSs (First person shooter) appeared, the most of the players turned away from RPGs (and other games), and the developer teams and publisher companies started to work on FPSs (It is another thing that the ID Software had always led and others were always in delay and made ID-game clones, with few exceptions). No good RPGs appeared if any RPG appeared at all. It was the crisis of RPGs. Some experts were talking even about the death of this genre. Diablo did some refresh, but most of the CRPG-fans (including me) have never admitted it as a real CRPG. Then Fallout has come, and Baldur's Gate. They have become relatively popular again. But I always want quality. And I am not sure that the CRPGs which will appear will all provide that.
Anyway, your question was that who would be the main players of RPG development. Developer teams usually have no money, only creativity and persistence (I am not speaking about teams who founded their own company). Creating a CRPG is a gigantci work, without a publisher who supports the project, it is sentenced to death. Hundreds of people had been working on BGII for example.
I agree to you, Bioware will probably dominate, but one never knows... I think that new companies and/or excellent projects can always appear surprisingly, and "take their positions". But very many things are needed for success nowadays.

 

Personally I find it hard if not impossible to beleive that a company will ever be able to produce anything matching the Baldur's Gate saga. And then bear in mind that even BG was without its problems - certain elements of the story were removed due to time constraints and it was up to the modders to fill the gaps.

One of the problems with CRPGs, as it has been said already, is that the consumer is really starved in terms of choice. How many D&D-based CRPGs can you think of? Is it a hundred? Fifty? Ten? Well, the ones I can think of are

• Baldur's Gate/2
• Icewind Dale/2
• Planescape: Torment
• Neverwinter Nights
• TOEE
• Pools of Radience (ohh dear)

Think about it: once one of these games comes out, it doesn't matter if it's good or just 'average' because the consumer has probably spent a year a more without any new D&D-based games coming out. They go out and buy the new game out of desperation. And I think companies have cought on to that too, which explains why so much is about marketing nowadays. The fundamental credo of salesmanship - that the customer comes first - has been lost as far as computer games go.

I wish I could offer some hope for those of you looking for great new CRPG relases, but I'm afraid I can offer none. The best thing you can hope for is your next Neverwinter Add-on fix.

 

The future is definately in shareware/small indie games unless you are one of those "graphics over gameplay" types.


Dungeoncraft ( uaf.sourceforge.net/ ) is a freeware remake of the FRUA construction set with many more features than the original Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures had. The only bad thing about it IMO is the adherance to 1st edition AD&D rules.

Avernum, Blades of Avernum, geneforge I & II et al
from www.spidweb.com/ are great(and the older "Exiles" games are great also if you don't mind or prefer 2D top-down games.


Natuk & it's freeware sequel Pirates of the Western Sea are great!!! Go to www.proudft.com/

In Natuk you create and play a party of eight orcs, ogres and half-trolls on a mission of revenge. Combat is incredibly fun and detailed(everything from two-weapon fighting to aimed locational attacks) and the magic system is unique.
POWS is more like BG in that you create a single NPC of the usual races/classes(elves, humans, dwarf, gnome...Warrior, mage, bard, monk etc.) and recruit up to 7 other characters Somke bugs in the game as it was never properly completed but it is playable and finishable.

Helherron
http://personal.inet.fi/private/helherron/main.htm

is similar to Tom Proudfoot's first CRPG, Nahlakh (the precursor to Natuk) but sports some innovations and tons of gameplay for only $12 or so.

Slaves to Armok: God of Blood ( www.bay12games.com/news.htm ) may be the most ambitious CRPG EVER! The game is a 3D "roguelike " (for those in the know) with heavy emphasis on logic/realism(in the mechanics, not the subject matter which is pure fantasy). The game features many editors for creating your own worlds, creatures and even models and is updated very frequently though far from completion. If Tarn manages to finish this thing it will turn a LOT of heads in the industry!

 

@ Drowling.
You missed a very good recent RPG off that list- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
Anyone noticed the sudden boom in MMORPGs? Companies realise that MMORPGs are the way to go. This is where replayability = revenue, which eventually = profits. Blizzard is jumping on that bandwagon with World of Warcrack to compete with Evercrack, Anarchy Oncrack and Star Wars: GalaxP.

The console market is also more desireable because console games are harder to copy. Manufacturing single player games have lost their appeal simply because many people will just copy the thing rather than buy it.

All we can do is hope that people who want to make a good RPG get together (and not people at Troika who, despite their good intentions, made crappy RPGs).

 

I guess making any type of a game these days is a costly proceedure and if the product doesn't sell then there are huge losses to the developer/publisher. There would be no use flooding the maket (from a developers view) as the consumer would have to much choice and if their game did not in any way quite stay up with the compition then the product would flop.

This is hugely emphasised with RPG's as they usually requre epic camaigns, thousands of enimies complex AI and a detailed story line. To appeal to the mass market developers have to release their product packed to the eyeballs with eyecandy which will usually require huge costs for the graphic designers etc.

Pack this with the relitively small rpg market and you have a vertual nightmare for the consumer (us)

 

Is the RPG market really that small?

 

Most new games sold are on console, and fps and stratergy games tend to sell more than rpg's