"Dragon Age: Origins" was sold out at the store I went to, so I just bought "Elder Scrolls: Oblivion" instead. I've never played that game before, so I thought it might be a good RPG warm-up before I order DA:O through Amazon or something.
Well, after playing Oblivion a bit, I decided to hold off on Dragon Age.......
"Oblivion" is a different type of CRPG than I am used to playing. It has more in common with games like "System Shock 2" or "Deus Ex" than "Baldur's Gate." It is more "first-person-shooter" than traditional CRPG, and I think I like it! Well, 20+ hours of play seems to indicate that I do like it. And it made me wonder what constitutes a "computer role playing game."
Traditional CRPGs tend to involve micromanaging "parties" of characters, or even an individual character, based on stat-based, tactical gameplay. This, of course, has its own cerebral, imaginative charm. They are played from a "god" perspective, like the various "Sim" games, where you control a character (or a series of characters) from a third-person perspective. And in this case, you're not just concerned about "yourself," but you are caring for a series of characters.
Oblivion is more about providing the "you-are-there" role-playing experience. Rather than simulated "dice rolls," you actively participate in the first-person battles, swinging your weapon or shooting arrows at the click of the mouse. In this respect, it is more like "Doom" than "Final Fantasy XXXIV." Being a single-character experience, there are no parties to manage, and all NPC's seem to do their own thing beyond your control, as they would in real life.
Where most CRPG's, Oblivion included, seem to fail is in the "slogging" aspect, as in traveling from place to place. The dungeon sequences in Oblivion are cool, but travelling across the countryside is generally a "slog," in that I'm just wandering around with no action. This feeling is especially acute in towns, where I'm hunting around for certain shops or people. While exploration is cool in general, it just seems to take too much time to find that particular person or place you're searching for, probably the bulk of the gameplay. It is in these sections that I get bored. I find these feelings to be generally true of most CRPGs. There is no "DM" to control the pace of the game.
So what is an RPG? Well, when I was "DM'ing" my own pen-paper-dice "Dungeons and Dragons" campaign back in high school, my goal was to immerse the players in the world, and in their own characters. I'd played several D&D games where players said things like "My elf monk is going to ask the shopkeeper to cut him a break," or something like that. They were playing in "third person." I wanted something different in my campaign. I wanted the players to CREATE characters and BECOME their characters. I was looking for a bond between the player and their character, which would make my plot all the more involving.
And it worked. Some of my friends objected at first. "You mean I can't play my 17th-level chaotic-evil magic user in your campaign????"
"Nope. New, first-level characters only. And no evil characters."
"That sucks! I'm not sure I want to play your campaign!"
But play they did, and after they BECAME their characters, I had the best D&D campaign going! Unfortunately, my campaign never reached the end, where I had a very "Return-of-the-Jedi-esque" conclusion imagined for them (a year before RotJ came out; Lucas ripped me off!). Unfortunately, my main players did stupid things like move away or get girlfriends, ending their involvement in my campaign. :-)
What does this all have to do with CRPG's? In my opinion, the goal of an RPG is to immerse the player in the fantasy and allow them to imagine him or herself as an alternate person. That was my goal as a DM, and I even bent a few official rules give my players this feeling. I felt that this feeling contributed to the excitement of "role playing." Traditional "stat-based" tactical CRPGs require a LOT more imagination to achieve this, seeming to me to be more "god" game than RPG. On the other hand, the FPS-style gaming of Oblivion seems to lack a lot of the imaginative flexibility of a "stat-based" RPG, but gives the player a lot more of the "you-are-there" feeling.
Then again, even in pen-paper-dice ("ppd") RPG's, combat is handled in "stat-based" turns based on rule tables and dice rolls, so traditional CRPG's is actually closer to the "ppd" RPG's in this regard.
Ok, I realize this is somewhat of a heavy discussion right before Christmas! Just thought I'd put a few thoughts out there.
And don't forget, this territory is covered very much in-depth in Matt's book, "Dungeons & Desktops," a book that's required reading if you have any interest at all in CRPG's.
"Dragon Age: Origins" was sold out at the store I went to, so I just bought "Elder Scrolls: Oblivion" instead. I've never played that game before, so I thought it might be a good RPG warm-up before I order DA:O through Amazon or something.
Well, after playing Oblivion a bit, I decided to hold off on Dragon Age.......
"Oblivion" is a different type of CRPG than I am used to playing. It has more in common with games like "System Shock 2" or "Deus Ex" than "Baldur's Gate." It is more "first-person-shooter" than traditional CRPG, and I think I like it! Well, 20+ hours of play seems to indicate that I do like it. And it made me wonder what constitutes a "computer role playing game."
Traditional CRPGs tend to involve micromanaging "parties" of characters, or even an individual character, based on stat-based, tactical gameplay. This, of course, has its own cerebral, imaginative charm. They are played from a "god" perspective, like the various "Sim" games, where you control a character (or a series of characters) from a third-person perspective. And in this case, you're not just concerned about "yourself," but you are caring for a series of characters.
Oblivion is more about providing the "you-are-there" role-playing experience. Rather than simulated "dice rolls," you actively participate in the first-person battles, swinging your weapon or shooting arrows at the click of the mouse. In this respect, it is more like "Doom" than "Final Fantasy XXXIV." Being a single-character experience, there are no parties to manage, and all NPC's seem to do their own thing beyond your control, as they would in real life.
Where most CRPG's, Oblivion included, seem to fail is in the "slogging" aspect, as in traveling from place to place. The dungeon sequences in Oblivion are cool, but travelling across the countryside is generally a "slog," in that I'm just wandering around with no action. This feeling is especially acute in towns, where I'm hunting around for certain shops or people. While exploration is cool in general, it just seems to take too much time to find that particular person or place you're searching for, probably the bulk of the gameplay. It is in these sections that I get bored. I find these feelings to be generally true of most CRPGs. There is no "DM" to control the pace of the game.
So what is an RPG? Well, when I was "DM'ing" my own pen-paper-dice "Dungeons and Dragons" campaign back in high school, my goal was to immerse the players in the world, and in their own characters. I'd played several D&D games where players said things like "My elf monk is going to ask the shopkeeper to cut him a break," or something like that. They were playing in "third person." I wanted something different in my campaign. I wanted the players to CREATE characters and BECOME their characters. I was looking for a bond between the player and their character, which would make my plot all the more involving.
And it worked. Some of my friends objected at first. "You mean I can't play my 17th-level chaotic-evil magic user in your campaign????"
"Nope. New, first-level characters only. And no evil characters."
"That sucks! I'm not sure I want to play your campaign!"
But play they did, and after they BECAME their characters, I had the best D&D campaign going! Unfortunately, my campaign never reached the end, where I had a very "Return-of-the-Jedi-esque" conclusion imagined for them (a year before RotJ came out; Lucas ripped me off!). Unfortunately, my main players did stupid things like move away or get girlfriends, ending their involvement in my campaign. :-)
What does this all have to do with CRPG's? In my opinion, the goal of an RPG is to immerse the player in the fantasy and allow them to imagine him or herself as an alternate person. That was my goal as a DM, and I even bent a few official rules give my players this feeling. I felt that this feeling contributed to the excitement of "role playing." Traditional "stat-based" tactical CRPGs require a LOT more imagination to achieve this, seeming to me to be more "god" game than RPG. On the other hand, the FPS-style gaming of Oblivion seems to lack a lot of the imaginative flexibility of a "stat-based" RPG, but gives the player a lot more of the "you-are-there" feeling.
Then again, even in pen-paper-dice ("ppd") RPG's, combat is handled in "stat-based" turns based on rule tables and dice rolls, so traditional CRPG's is actually closer to the "ppd" RPG's in this regard.
Ok, I realize this is somewhat of a heavy discussion right before Christmas! Just thought I'd put a few thoughts out there.
And don't forget, this territory is covered very much in-depth in Matt's book, "Dungeons & Desktops," a book that's required reading if you have any interest at all in CRPG's.
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