Fallout 4 is really disappointing.

Lanfear said:
That's another definition again, which precludes any game that requires reflexes or hand-eye coordination. Including New Vegas, Witcher, any Ultima game later than VI, Morrowind, Deus Ex, VtM: Bloodlines, and too many others to name.
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Damn, so there's no conclusive definition of an RPG then.
 
Lanfear said:
That's another definition again, which precludes any game that requires reflexes or hand-eye coordination. Including New Vegas, Witcher, any Ultima game later than VI, Morrowind, Deus Ex, VtM: Bloodlines, and too many others to name.
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New Vegas would fuck with your guns stability if you had a low strength or gun skill, I think Deus Ex would change weapon damage based on skill level (?) and, didn't Morrowind change what weapons you were capable of using, I haven't played Morrowind in an eternity so I don't remember.
Anyway FPS RPG's have to have exceptions made but that's fine, it isn't like RPG was a tight term to begin with.
Lanfear said:
If you define an RPG as a game in which players take on a role and engage in adventures in a fantasy setting run by a computer, then half the games in existence qualify. If you cherry pick the term "take on a role" to mean that players must be allowed to make up their own character and background, then you disqualify very good RPGs like Torment and Witcher.
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I'm totally fine with those being excluded from the RPG genre, it's not like their not being RPG's effects overall quality, in the case of Torment one could argue that the dialogue choices the player makes etch out each incarnation of the Nameless one.
 
Izak said:
I'm totally fine with those being excluded from the RPG genre
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A lot of people would not be fine with it, and their thoughts on what makes a game qualify as an RPG don't carry any less weight than yours.

All the games I've cited are quite good in their own way. Some were genre-defining in the early days of CRPGs, and even those games would fail to satisfy some of the modern definitions proposed in this thread, but the truth is that no one here can excise any of them from the RPG genre and if you try the gaming world at large won't care. In the end the whole argument is pretty meaningless because there are simply too many, often conflicting game elements in the very large body of decades-spanning work that makes up the RPG genre for there to ever be a consensus on what makes a given game qualify.
 
Lanfear said:
That's another definition again, which precludes any game that requires reflexes or hand-eye coordination. Including New Vegas, Witcher, any Ultima game later than VI, Morrowind, Deus Ex, VtM: Bloodlines, and too many others to name.
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Indeed and that is why I mentioned a while ago in other thread that for me there is not many real RPG games for computer and consoles because of the limitations of the hardware or game devs.

But at least some of those are still closer than FO4 because for example in Morrowind your character hits with a particular weapon more the higher his skill with that particular weapon is (due to the random "dice rolls" which many people hate these days), in Fallout New Vegas the higher your character's guns skill, the less spread your weapons have and the less your character sways his weapon around. But yeah if people want a real RPG there is only P&P which is sad.

Lanfear said:
No. One could argue the same applies to literary genres in general, but CRPGs are one of the fuzziest and most often argued-over by Internet nerds like us.
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Hey I am not a nerd, I am a wombat!
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Oh crap...
 
Risewild said:
But yeah if people want a real RPG there is only P&P which is sad.
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I agree - sort of. CRPGs were first created in an effort to emulate pen and paper RPGs, and they didn't and really couldn't ever have possibly succeeded, to the point where the two things have become more or less distinct - CRPGs don't even try to act like P&P games much anymore, they've turned into their own thing. You could say that's unfortunate, I would probably agree to some extent, but then again so many games came out last year that I enjoyed playing, I couldn't really mourn stuff like Eye of the Beholder for too long.
 
Lanfear said:
If you define an RPG as a game in which players take on a role and engage in adventures in a fantasy setting run by a computer, then half the games in existence qualify. If you cherry pick the term "take on a role" to mean that players must be allowed to make up their own character and background, then you disqualify very good RPGs like Torment and Witcher.
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Okay now you're simply wrong. Nobody ever claimed that in a rpg player character can't have a background. Even in majority of P&P games DM provides the background of the character you'll play. This background is the foundation of the role you'll establish through out the game. Was our character a soldier before the bombs? Okay but his position should be revealed through out game by the player. During the dialogues we should allow to make choices whether we regret our pass or not. Our s.p.e.c.i.a.l choices should explain what was that our role in the army: were we a Power Armor operator with high mechanical knowledge or were we working for the intelligence or maybe we're an sniper like Simo Hayha, or maybe we're a commando with high charisma who would infiltrate enemy ranks Otto Skorzeny style or maybe we're a lawyer working in military court etc.

What Fallout 4 did wrong is to tell what kind of soldier and person we're (in the prologue no less). So player feels awkward when acting outside that role. On the other side PS:T was allowing us to build a new personality it was as blank as it could get, more blank than any game ever done actually.
 
The RPG label is meaningless. It is too broad and can be applied to too many things. Who cares if Fallout 4 is an RPG or not, the question is "is it a good RPG with lots of meaningful choices that have consequences that affect the story, your character and the world around you?" The label is worthless at this point. Debating about its definition is pointless. A racing game is a racing game. A shooter is a shooter. A platformer is a platformer. Other labels are narrow and fit very neatly. RPG on the other hand is so subjective that it is pointless to talk about what games are RPG and what aren't. I mean, to me the Sims series is one of the best RPG series' (conceptually at least) out there. Only problem I have with it is how greedy they are about the expansion content.

Way I see it the only way to really talk about the quality of RPG's is to first offer your detailed view on what the RPG label means 'to you' and then go on to dissect whatever game you have your eyes on and point out why it is or isn't a good RPG.

But no one gets to say that objectively RPG's mean X. Because the gaming industry don't give a shit about X, if a publisher or studio feels that it is applicable to their game then they will market and sell it as an RPG. So even if there is an objective definition it is meaningless because no one gives a shit about it. What an RPG is is completely subjective at this point.


So personally? An RPG to me is a game that allows me to define my character.
What is she good at, what is she lacking in?
This is tied to stats, skills, perks, talents and whatever. It is the mechanics that define what my character can do and what she can't do, it defines her abilities as a human being as well as her shortcomings.

What are her morals?
Her morals will be defined by the choices she makes when forced to make a decision based on ethics, morals, ideology. It is about what choice she will make in a quest or an event. Two people are arguing about something, who's side will she take? A homeless kid stole a watch to sell so it could buy some food, what will you do about it?

What is her personality?
This is heavily tied to the dialogue system, what choices does the game offer me when engaging with another character? Can I be a hardass? Can I be sarcastic? Can I be flirtatious? Can I lie? Can I joke?

What are her aspirations?
Basically, will the game allow me to live up to the aspirations that fit the character? What if the character wants power? Can I get that? Will the games story reflect that? If I want something more personal like a relationship or a family will the game allow me to achieve this in some way?

If a game allows me to define my character really well then that speaks volumes about the rest of the game itself. A game that allows me to define her morals will offer me mulitple quest solutions. A game that allows me to define her personality will have a good branching dialogue system. A game that allows me to define her strengths and weaknesses will have a good stat/skill system that is more than just about whether I kill stuff with a yellow, green or purple stick. A game that allow me to define her aspirations will have story elements that offer me choices in how I want to steer my character and I won't feel forced to continue the story-line because a reason that don't fit my character has been imposed on me.

That's what an RPG is to me. It allows me to 'role-play'. To define my character.

Whatever game fits this bill is an RPG to me and a game that allows me to define my character really 'really' damn well is a fucking great RPG. Which is why I think The Sims is an RPG series. It allows me to define all of these things in tons of different ways.

But, and this is a big butt, the most important question comes after all of these definitions; Is the game focused around these or are they just a side-thing?

That's what defines a good RPG to me. But even bad RPG's can have these qualities and still be RPG's, it simply means they ain't good.

Now, as to Fallout 4, it does not allow me to define my skillset really, only choices I get to make is whether or not I can hack, lock and craft stuff. Big whoop. It does not allow me to define my morals for the vast majority of the time apart from the main quest when it splits. Not enough. It does allow me to define my personality, it just does a really damn shitty job of it. And it does allow me to define my aspirations as it has a branching narrative. So it completely fails on 2, it's bad at 1 and it fits 1.

It's not an RPG to me. An RPG to me needs to fit 3 out of these 4 definitions to even be considered one.
 
Theinnerfish said:
Okay now you're simply wrong. Nobody ever claimed that in a rpg player character can't have a background.
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My response was to the definition provided by Izak, who inferred that any game in which the player doesn't get to choose their role, but is thrust into it whether they like it or not, isn't an RPG. I've listed several quality RPGs in which precisely this happens. My point being that there is no universally accepted definition of what an RPG is.

Mr Fish said:
The RPG label is meaningless. It is too broad and can be applied to too many things. Who cares if Fallout 4 is an RPG or not, the question is "is it a good RPG with lots of meaningful choices that have consequences that affect the story, your character and the world around you?" The label is worthless at this point. Debating about its definition is pointless.
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Agreed completely. Good post, also, a lot of those things are crucial for me in an RPG as well.
 
Lanfear said:
My response was to the definition provided by Izak, who inferred that any game in which the player doesn't get to choose their role, but is thrust into it whether they like it or not, isn't an RPG. I've listed several quality RPGs in which precisely this happens. My point being that there is no universally accepted definition of what an RPG is.
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What i tried to say is PS:Torment allowed to choose your role more precise than any RPG out there. It's why it's (arguably)best wrpg of all times. You didn't even have a background, in a sense you're born in that morgue. Player character was utterly blank; the good incarnation was the actual person but not the one player controls.

So what i'm trying to say is your example might true for Witcher but it certainly not for PS:Torment.
 
Theinnerfish said:
There is no argument here. You're taking the easy way out.
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Normally I would agree with your here, but to me the point of having an argument is for both or all sides to show their case and have, a somewhat intellectual argument or playful jabs and sarcasm.

It stops being an argument for me when an individual in the group making an argument has no understanding to the subject they are defending or the surrounding subjects. I refuse to have a conversation online with someone that does not understand the basics of ppm, but insists on arguing it.
 
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