Hello, Sg! Do you remember the old material "On the problems of modern RPG" – Stopgame.Ru/Blogs/Topic/82754? Do you know that they tried to block him on YouTube? But in the end, we repelled him, so if I did not have to get acquainted, it’s time. Because today’s blog can be considered its logical continuation. In the comments, I was asked a lot to make a selection of the “very” real RPGs, otherwise I only scold and criticize. So I wanted to do it, but quickly came to the conclusion that making such collections is an ungrateful thing. How meticulous do not approach the question, you will still forget something, it will raise the srach and this will begin, but I don’t want this, so I came up with something better. Instead, I selected 5, It seems to me the main criteria, by which you can easily calculate who the dad is in the genre, and who is a cheap fake with elements. Or more simply, what makes the game the most from the game Real RPG. And no, this is not a menu for creating a character, not the presence of a dialogue system, it is not necessary to redistribute skills, and even more so, not the inscription "RPG" on a box with a game. Everything is slightly less obvious and trivial.
But before starting, it is necessary to explain by what principle these points were drawn up. How RPG – Role Play Game deciphered. What is it? Role -playing game! That is, a game that gives you to choose and play a particular role. Logical! About why some of the most properly “representatives” of the genre in this concept either do not fit at all, or only partially, and about why this is so and what prevents them from was the previous material. And today we will analyze what helps the true representatives of the genre not only to comply with this concept, but sometimes even develop it.
1. Social perks.
My first item is listed as “social perks”, but in reality this concerns any social interactions in principle, and this is one of the most important points. The more complicated, multifaceted and, in general, the system of social interactions, the better. And yes, the presence of a dialogue menu as a phenomenon is definitely not enough ..
The fact is that social interactions, it just happened, is Significant Part of our life! And if this item is implemented too simple, it is already kills most of any potential plot play. Note, it is the plot (narrative, if you want). "Ekhon" is a little different. In the end, the action-RPG, where only the “action” itself changes from pumping, but the plot does not change, like Skyrim or Diablo, no one canceled either.
So, “as my grandfather said”, if nothing affects the number of dialogs or at least the course of the conversation, or only one indicator, like “eloquence”, then the game is no longer a purebred RPG.
And strangely enough, there are quite a lot of positive examples. There is the same Fallout: New Vegas. I have already talked about this many times, but just in case I remind you that there they can blame the dialogue at the course of dialogue Any your skills, far from only eloquence. No, in order to convincingly lie, you need eloquence, but if, for example, you want to convince someone that it is beneficial to help you, or to bargain, you already need a barter. If you want to convince a person that you can use the same explosives, you need to be able to use it, etc.D. and t.p. (If I had no problems with the Steam version, I would have gathered more examples) But these are only skills, there are also perks! They also sometimes add lines of dialogs, even such rarely used and narrowly focused as “cannibal”, for example. Add to this a reputation in different fractions and get a whole ton of contextual dialogs. No gifts FNV at one time hit the Guinness Book of Records for the number of dialogs.
Obsidian, in the past, Black Isle, had such an interesting feature as stats that rewrite a bunch of dialogs in the game. So, for example, in Planescape: Torment it was “wisdom” – “wisdom”: if you put it on 18 or higher, you opened up a bunch of new dialogs. And in old Fallout’ah – on the contrary. If you put intelligence below 3, then your hero began to mumble instead of intelligible speech. In the future, this migrated to New Vegas, but far from such a scale.
You can also recall Kingdom Come: Deliverance, in which the success in the conversation literally depends on the purity and high cost of your clothing, and other external attributes. It is easier for a noble person to convince someone of something when, as a dirty, stinking, and even with a bloodied sword, no one will even talk. There, by the way, you can also pump the perks to this matter in order to better speak the teeth of the nobility, but to communicate worse with the village, or, accordingly, vice versa.
Well, in the end, you can remember games where a lot depends on your race. In the same Dragon Age: Origins, your origin affects many dialogs, and in the recent Divinity: Original Sin 2, you can generally become a real undead, and if you do not carefully hide it, few will talk to you at all. Lucky if they are not attacking. However, in the most unexpected places it can give unexpected pluses.
You see, the real RPG realizes that its unusual original properties, some capabilities of the player are not some kind of stupid “Saling Point”, which should only exist nominally. On the contrary, it is fat Pros, which the player should be able to use the maximum, including especially in social interactions.
2. Not (only) vertical pumping or the correct restriction of the player.
And by the way about the features, the broken balance Gxmble Casino no deposit bonus is bad, “understandable” ©? When I can become the "otibog" of all industries, it just kills wins, and when the whole game is exclusively vertical growth, it is simply boring. Yes, the pumped perks or abilities should always be negative in addition to positive features, and if pumping is so done that the player can only “grow”, then he should be tightly limited in this.
In the same Fallout 4, Skyrim and other Bethesda games after Morrowind (although it is not perfect there), the puncture on this parameter is absolute: always exclusively vertical growth, but no restrictions.
When a positive example was already higher with the perks of Kingdom Come. But the most fierce record holders in this regard for me are Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas. There is not a perk, so some new unusual property. And if the perk gives something unequivocally good, then by honor there is a negative side effect. Moreover, as I said above, it really affects the gameplay.
Here you can reach at least Baldur’s Gate, where the maximum possible level is the maximum possible level according to the Adnd system, but for complete passage, you can achieve a maximum of the 11th, it seems that I can be mistaken here.
But from the recent most remembered Vampyr. There, most of the pumping can be obtained for the murder of NPC. If this is not done, at one point to go according to the plot and it becomes very difficult to kill enemies, because on only battles you get experience quite little. But if you kill NPC, you lose the related sidelines, and the state of some areas worsens, which is why the skirmishes in them occur more often. Not that Vampyr in all fields is a reference RPG, but the chip is interesting.
It is very important to limit the player to correctly, because when I am a “all-way”, which can be best, I have no reason to play out someone, I can already be in a row and I can do everything. Yes, some moral elections are still behind me, but because of this feeling of permissiveness and omnipotence, they are not felt and half as much as they should.
3. The maximum non -linear middle.
By the way, about any elections, we will not return to my beloved topic of nonlinearity for a long time. Which part of the game is the most important in this regard? Start? Well, one start with the only tie option, this is OK. Not everyone to steal this chip of Dragon Age Origins with different introductions … although it would be cool.
What then? Final? Yes, different endings are cool, but it so happened that most of them are behind the frame. Starting with Baldur’s Gate and ending even a call of Pripyat, New Vegas or a Witcher, we are doing the same at the end, and then in the form of some kind of slide show we are shown the consequences of our actions. And in general, the example of the same Planescape Torment shows, if scenario is justified enough, there will be no complaints about such a plot construction.
In fact, the correct answer is the middle! The beginning and the end can afford linearity, but the most important thing – the middle – should always be the most nonlinear and diverse. And this applies not only to the main plot, but also of any individual quest.
4. The ability to "finish" quests
By the way, about quests, such a little fad. Perhaps not as critical as the rest, and you will not agree with me, but I personally terribly annoying, when not a single quest cannot be overwhelmed in the game. When you can’t kill quest characters so that everything does not get stuck, when you need to “urgently” help someone, and you go to the other end of the card at least the other end of the card, and the rest of the world is just waiting for you.
Not only that this casual garbage completely knocks out of immersion, and also negatively affects the wagging, reducing the variability of available actions! A mass killer who is furious only from the sight of representatives of a particular faction, for example, I will not play. But this is only the most banal and exaggerated example, which was simply the very first to come to mind when writing this text.
5. Empty inside gg
But if this is not so critical, then the last item is probably the most important – an impersonal main character. It is depersonalized, that is, he can have a fixed floor, voice or even appearance, but inside It should be absolutely empty.
For example, Fallout 4. Yes, I can “create” my character there, but whoever I did there, my header-hero will still have a given backstory with the finished family, even the child, and in general, whom I would not try to “play”, I will never get rid of some features in any way. For example, my chief hero will not be very talkative, because in all dialogs it always responds purely mechanically, “yes” or “no”. Can only ask again or joke, but he also does not know how to joke (because the scriptwriters do not know how to). But it perfectly owns all types of weapons, and in the course of pumping can, perhaps, choose which weapons will apply more damage, ordinary or energy. What a scope for playing!
But in the same Planescape Torment, the recent Kingdom Come or in the first two parts of the witcher is not allowed to choose anything from the above, but due to good scenario work and gameplay, there are still enough space for wig.
In general, in the latest examples, you can smoothly approach conclusionU:
Real Those same canonical RPGs are in essence a gaming of the hoods, most often Gurps or DND, or Cyberpunk 2020, which Poles are doing the game now. And still these games confess one principle: be anyone you want! This, roughly speaking, is the real “sandboxes”, which are built on the fact that the player creates any character from his head, pokes this character into a specific world, setting or situation, and looks at what happens.
Most of modern “RPG” is rather a game of a classic monomifa, only with an open world adjusted and some illusion of choice, where it is interesting to play only yourself. Well, you know, if Luke Skywalker on the Star of Death would have begun to additionally engage in tower cleaning and the execution of sites for local inhabitants, of course, with a difficult moral choice at the end, after which he would have thrown a little on the bright or dark side of the Force.
And I understand people who like that they write a good story for them, and they themselves are simply given a limited choice, with whom to make friends with, who to rude, and with whom to sex. This is easier to delve into and it is easier to enjoy it, so I do not condemn. (I like such games yourself no less)
My message is not that it is bad or good, but that you do not need to confuse one with the other. Because, for example, a person who is wiped that some Fallout 4 is a cool RPG in all fields, just like the previous ones, and who will go there behind a steep wagging, risks very much to be disappointed.
And if this situation seems strange and absurd to you, just remember that most players very often have games in the tops of the best RPG, which was attributed to this genre very nominally, only for elements, although in fact the “RPG-experience” in them is extremely few.
It is important to position any media that we eat – it is important that this does not happen.