If Fallout 4 had actual proper alternate endings.

ZigzagPX4 said:
It's not really the story itself, but your ability to affect it and be affected by it that @Crni Vuk was referring to.

Morrowind's dialogue was more of a tool for initiating trade, continuing the plot, or getting new information. It still didn't provide much in the way of C&C and the ability to persuade other characters.

In the end, you can have the greatest fantasy plot in the world, inside a game with very enjoyable gameplay, yet the game itself can still be a crappy RPG.
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Fair enough, though the name of mediocre RPG rubs me off the wrong way.
 
Crni does have a point here folks but Morrowind isn't a mediocre RPG. It might be relatively simplistic when compared to Planescape, Fallout 1 and 2, or Vampire: The Masquerade, but it walks the thin line between casual and hardcore. You will notice that Morrowind is where the major split occurred in which Bethesda simplified all of their games from then on. It is no coincidence that it was the first console entry in the series either.
 
Of course, mr Toront! When I am saying Mediocre, I am talking about it's qualities as Role Playing Game in actually playing a role, compared to a game like New Vegas or Fallout 1/2.
ZigzagPX4 said:
It's not really the story itself, but your ability to affect it and be affected by it that @Crni Vuk was referring to.

Morrowind's dialogue was more of a tool for initiating trade, continuing the plot, or getting new information. It still didn't provide much in the way of C&C and the ability to persuade other characters.

In the end, you can have the greatest fantasy plot in the world, inside a game with very enjoyable gameplay, yet the game itself can still be a crappy RPG.
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Finally someone who gets it.
 
I think we need to recognise that "Roleplaying" is not necessarily characterised by C&C and the possibility to do everything in a billion ways.
Both Fallout and Morrowind come from P&P roots, albeit with a different focus.
Morrowind (and even more so Daggerfall) focused on the action-oriented part of a Dungeons&Dragons style game and mainly progressed the story as a dungeon crawler. You have different options to go finish your dungeon, but in the end you have objectives that you have to do.
Fallout focused more on the player-freedom aspect of P&P roleplaying, where the DM actively encourages creativity from the players to solve the quest and allows for a more freeform gameplay.
I think both are valid approaches for translating a P&P RPG to the computer, they just have different focuses and aims.
This whole "It's a terrible RPG if there's no C&C in every single step" strikes me as a relatively young sentiment, btw., but maybe that's just me.
 
And remember, a RPG is a game where you're playing a role, which is very vague meaning that there's no way you can say this is a mediocre RPG based on the lack of C&C as you still play a role.
 
Well, "playing a role" is a bit too vague in my opinion.
I mean, you play a role in almost every video game. Kingpin: Life of Crime is certainly not an RPG even though you play a role, have an inventory, hub areas with friendly NPCs that sell you stuff and give you "side quests", is it?
I think a big part of a Roleplaying Game is character progression. That is one thing you have in pretty much all RPGs. A way to improve your character beyond just finding better items. In Kingpin you find better armour, better guns, mods, and can hire thugs to accompany you, but you'll never have more health, run faster or jump higher.
In a Roleplaying Game it is possible to change your character by your choosing over the course of the game depending on how you play the game.
 
Dr Fallout said:
And remember, a RPG is a game where you're playing a role, which is very vague meaning that there's no way you can say this is a mediocre RPG based on the lack of C&C as you still play a role.
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It's not just the lack of C&C, as Hass nicely said.
And yeah, there are many approaches. But I think we all can be clear that Morrowind is not a dungeon crawler and not a clone to the gameplay of Diablo, where the only way to define it as RPG is the gameplay.

However, when I am talking about role playing, I am talking about the narrative. The way of role playing that you see in Plansecape Torment, Arcanum, Fallout 1, New Vegas, and to some extend Baldurs Gate and Kotor 2. The idea that you create a character with a certain personality and the oportunity to actually play this personality. I am talking about the typical archetypes. Characters with different motivations and philsophies. Baldurs Gate 2 for example, has a decent interaction between the player and his party. Evil characters, for the lack of better words, might leave your party permanently if you decide to solve quests in a "good way". And certain characters would always get in a quarel with each other, because they have conflicting views.

Most RPGs, particularly today, don't offer you the narrative to explore that and create rather theme parks for the player. And the most of role playing you get is the choice to use a sword, bow or fireball to kill the big evil guy. And this kinda became the standard for role playing games today. And I see why, because it makes you feel powerfull. Imagine a character you really like leaving your party, and why? Only because you decided to save the dancel in distress! But this dancel killed the sister of your party member. So, he's leaving. Oh the horror of role playing a good character! Most players today want their cake and eat it too as far as RPGs goes. And thus you end up very often with a game that avoids any kind of conflict for the player.

Morrowind as game, simply doesn't allow you much of that, because of it's very limited dialogue and player interaction with the narrative and NPCs.
 
Crni, you did understand that I was arguing against you, right?
Morrowind is not a dungeon crawler, but one could argue that Daggerfall had lots of elements of a dungeon crawler, and Morrowind evolved from that. It's a different aspect of classic tabletop roleplaying games, and in my opinion just as valid.
Your definition of a TrueRPG® is too narrow in my opinion, and I think this focus on "I need to freely create my own character and be able to do absolutely everything" is a rather new point of view.
Are there even any TrueRPGs® besides those you listed?
 
But ... I do agree with some of your points.

Well, for the lack of words I just said role playing. I am well aware about the fact that there are different ideas and goals within RPGs. The approach in Diablo 1 and 2 is not worse to Planescape in my opinion. Even though the only part that defines Diablo as role playing is the character development, more or less. I mean it's definetly not the story and the narrative.

All I am saying is this, Morrowind is not necessarily some kind of deep role playing experience just because you have shit tons of "stats" to chose from. And it is in that sense not offering you really more compared to Oblivion or Skyrim, it's simply that Skyrim and Oblivion are doing a much worse job.

There are different ways to approach the RPG as grenre I guess. I will agree with that. You can do it trough stats and mechanics, or the story and dialog.
Again, sorry for my poor choice of words. I have no clue how to explain it otherwise. And yes, the number of RPGs that explore roleplaying trough the narrative are very rare. There are the few I named, and I think I forgot Drakensang 2 as well. But I havn't played all RPGs that are out there.

But it simply is something that Morrowind never did. And where it is only mediocre in my opinion. Doesn't mean the game for it self is shit or not a role playing game in the broad sense. Don't missunderstand my intentions, I am not trying to argue what a true RPG is. That's senseless. But different RPGs have different qualities. And role playing trough the narrative, simply is not one of Morrowinds strong points.
 
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Let's take it this way - Far Cry 3 had three skill trees, you technically played the "role" of a tourist kid turned guerilla warrior, and there were choices regarding the plot at the end. Many would consider that an RPG by modern standards, but for obvious reasons here, it still isn't.

If the argument is that "well, you didn't make a character in Far Cry 3 so it's not an RPG", the Witcher 3 didn't allow you to create your own witcher either, and that game is still an RPG, though not to a very far extent by the original standards.

Uh, I did describe that right, right?
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
Let's take it this way - Far Cry 3 had three skill trees, you technically played the "role" of a tourist kid turned guerilla warrior, and there were choices regarding the plot at the end. Many would consider that an RPG by modern standards, but for obvious reasons here, it still isn't.

If the argument is that "well, you didn't make a character in Far Cry 3 so it's not an RPG", the Witcher 3 didn't allow you to create your own witcher either, and that game is still an RPG, though not to a very far extent by the original standards.

Uh, I did describe that right, right?
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I think so...

RPG are fantasy based games where you go around killing monsters and leveling up. Nuff said.

Joking, we also have sci-fi and post apocalypse realms.
 
Crni Vuk said:
For Todd RPGs are runing around on a horseback killing stuff. True story.
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Maybe he just grew up hearing the term used incorrectly, too, though it's unlikely. Though, I suppose if I was on stage presenting a video game that involved character progression I would call it an RPG too.

Come to think of it, if I was the CEO of a publisher, I can't think of many reasons to not act like EA. It makes a lot of money. Yeah, that makes me a dirty hypocrite for complaining about said publishers, doesn't it? But I believe that a very large percentage of the NMAers here, put on the spot in charge of video game publishing, would make decisions no different to most directors in charge of the AAA industry today.

I mean, no offense, sure you all claim you would "be different" but once you're in a position like that, beliefs tend to change. Rather than be a hypocrite later on, I would rather just admit that in that kind of position, I probably wouldn't be much better than the CEOs we see with EA and Ubisoft today.
 
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Not exactly. What Todd said was "Fantasy, for us, is a knight on horseback running around and killing things." It was from an issue of Game Informer, but I can't find the article online, and I'm reluctant to go slinging that quote around as an indictment of his creativity and imagination without any context. For all we know (assuming none of you know the context either), the very next sentence was an explanation of how he planned to move away from that common preconception of fantasy. Then again, the game he was talking about was Oblivion, so it's entirely possible that he said that without a shred of irony and offered no qualification on it whatsoever.
 
Well, you know you could look on youtube for the Oblivion E3 footage, and see for your self how little of it made it in to the actuall game and decide for your self. What ever if he really believes in this or not isn't the point. What counts is the finished product. And even if you have fun with Oblivion, F3, Skyrim and F4, they can be barely described as RPGs, in the case of Fallout 4 it is even 99% FPS. As far as I am concerned, Bethesda is not making RPGs anymore, they just soemhow convinced a lot of people in the press and their own fans that they make RPGs. Just as how Taco Bell convinced people that they eat real Mexican Food.
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
Maybe he just grew up hearing the term used incorrectly, too, though it's unlikely. Though, I suppose if I was on stage presenting a video game that involved character progression I would call it an RPG too.

Come to think of it, if I was the CEO of a publisher, I can't think of many reasons to not act like EA. It makes a lot of money. Yeah, that makes me a dirty hypocrite for complaining about said publishers, doesn't it? But I believe that a very large percentage of the NMAers here, put on the spot in charge of video game publishing, would make decisions no different to most directors in charge of the AAA industry today.

I mean, no offense, sure you all claim you would "be different" but once you're in a position like that, beliefs tend to change. Rather than be a hypocrite later on, I would rather just admit that in that kind of position, I probably wouldn't be much better than the CEOs we see with EA and Ubisoft today.
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Todd always said in the past how he grew up playing RPG games he loved like the original Fallouts and Ultima games and stuff like that, he definitely knows what a RPG is :look:.
 
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