What is it about old school RPG's?

[Gandor]

Hi, I was just wondering what is it about old school RPG's that there is such a big fan base. I ask because, obviously, I have never played one (I doubt you would count Baldur's Gate as one, right?). I never played Ultima or Wizardry and probably won't at this point. So is it managing the stats that people find so intriguing, or do all old school RPG's have an excellent story, or what is it? I will form my own opinion as I play Eschalon, of course, but I want to know what others think. Thanks.

[alpha]

It's like reading a well-written book. And it's probably a matter of a personal (good) taste - if you like them or not

[Rune_74]

Well I think its about details and things you can do....the ew ones go for flash and bang not so much substance.

[adamantyr]

I think a large part of the appeal of old-school games was the context in which they were played. In the old days, console games were shoot-em-ups, and the consoles themselves disappeared for several years until the NES. And even when it did come out, it took a few more years for CRPG's to appear on it.

The games, because of the limitations of the platform, tended to be very sparse on information. As a result, the manuals and extra materials with the game were of high quality and caliber to make up for the lack.

Also, the games were usually very difficult. This was partly because most game designers didn't know how to balance stuff very well. Also, the nature of the challenges were cerebral in nature, as befitted their state as a "computer" game, not a console game. They were really targeting that teenage audience that liked puzzles and challenges and were fortunate enough to have a high-end computer system, probably because of their dad getting one for work.

Thing is, I don't think this formula would work now. The main reason being the internet's existence. Yeah, you had the big networks that were the proto-Internet back then, but not everyone was on it... I, for one, couldn't afford to even dial up a BBS more than once every few months, money was so tight. So most of your game help came from either calling the company directly (most old game manuals offered a toll-free number to call for hints) or talking to friends. Nowadays, you can do a quick Google search and find hundreds of websites with game solutions, walk throughs, items lists...

Granted, you could resist the urge to go searching for clues or hints, and solve the game on your own. But it doesn't quite have the same feeling of triumph, since most gamers would just view you as strange for not taking the easiest path to victory. A lot of the old school CRPG gamers tend to enjoy the journey, not what happens at the end. And that's where they greatly differ from modern gamers.

Adamantyr

[Gandor]

Granted, you could resist the urge to go searching for clues or hints, and solve the game on your own. But it doesn't quite have the same feeling of triumph, since most gamers would just view you as strange for not taking the easiest path to victory. A lot of the old school CRPG gamers tend to enjoy the journey, not what happens at the end. And that's where they greatly differ from modern gamers.
Adamantyr

This is very interesting to hear about what people get out of this genre that seems to set it apart in people's minds. I hope more people will add to the discussion.

In "resisting the urge to go searching for clues or hints," I take it you mean on the web. I experience that conflict, because I seem not to have been born with the male gene that controls character building. Usually my characters are lame-o until I go on the web and get some hints.
But I'm really trying to hold that to a minimum on Eschalon, and see what (who) I can make myself, and try to enjoy the surprises. I did just spend my lunch break reading the manual to equip myself with the basics.

[BehindTimes]

Alright, why I like many old school RPGs. (Personal opinion, not talking for anyone, and you may disagree with me on every point).

As previously mentioned, thick manuals because of sparse in game info. Although I do like lots of in-game info. I use to read the manuals cover to cover. (Although games like LotR Part 1 by Interplay was a little stupid where half the characters stated: "Please turn to page X". Although I HATE tutorial levels. I absolutely hate them. This just isn't for RPGs, it's for all games. Older games, and older RPGs, when you started the game, you were playing. You didn't have to go through needless quests on learning how to fight when you already knew how to fight. Having tips are fine imho, but forcing people into tutorials is absolutely stupid.

Old school RPGs were a lot more unforgiving. If you see a poll asking what's a hard game nowadays, and you dare mention an RPG, you get laughed at. Obviously these people never played some of the earlier Wizardries. Even the older Ultimas, when I killed a monster and saw a treasure, I was praying that it didn't have a poison trap. And also you had to map the game yourself, and figure things out yourself. I also agree that the internet has killed a lot of this feeling. Why spend hours mapping when they're already available to me a click away? Yes, I could ignore the internet, but my laziness is greater than my willpower. I'm always trying to find a game I can play without feeling the need to have to cheat. That's what I'd consider a great game. A game that I don't want to cheat at or even have the inclination to cheat. I wouldn't call older RPGs more difficult though. Newer RPGs have to deal with FAQs being used right off the bat, and unfortunately, they make the mistake of making the game hard to the point that you have to use an FAQ to get passed. To get the Ultimate Weapon I have to click X 15 times in town Alpha and 22 times in town Beta, and a new NPC will spawn in town Gamma if I do this correctly with no one telling me this? That's just not right. Unless it's a puzzle, you should always have information available. But the newer games are a lot more forgiving with automaps, easier enemies, etc. And the feeling of the sense of accomplishment when you actually did something is just indescribable with older games.

Game length. This is my main point of frustration with newer games. I AM NOT IN SCHOOL ANYMORE!!! I cannot devote a work week to playing a game and then some. I play in short bursts, and if I get bored with a game (which usually happens around 15-20 hours in), I put it away never to play it again. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games are the main culprit of this. They are 5 hour games with 95+ hours of random battle filler. Yes, Wizardry and Ultima, etc took some months to beat, but part of it was that I wasn't forced into 4+ hour sessions. I beat Wizardry 1 and Ultima 1 in under 8 hours game time. Most of the Ultimas were under 20 hours. Ultima 7, which I consider the best CRPG I have played, could be beated in 5 minutes if you knew what you were doing, but I put a lot more hours in because I was engrossed with the game. Games should have 40 hours if the person wants it to be 40 hours long, not because it has to be 40 hours long.

Less of a static world. Yes, games are a lot more complex today. More storyline, etc. But in older RPGs, if I wanted to be a thief and kill every NPC, I could be a thief, and kill every NPC. If I wanted to steal, I could. I wasn't forced to get a specific class with immortal NPCs. And I could go anywhere, right off the bat. Last dungeon at level 1? Sure. I'll die, but I can go there. And around the time of Ultima 5, schedules were introduced. The blacksmith wouldn't always be at his shop. It's 9 PM? Well, I have to wait until tomarrow if I want to buy a new sword.

2D graphics and parties. I don't like 3D worlds. They make me sick. (A lot of times, this is to be taken literally). And name the last time a 3D game had a party of more than 2? I'm talking a real 3D world, not a Final Fantasy fake 3D game where the battle system still takes place in a completely different environment.

Nostalgia, 'nuff said.

Simplicity. I play games to have fun. Yes, the older RPGs had a keyboard worth of buttons each mapped to a different command. But you had a mapping of what did what, and you got into the game and played it. You played a game for the game, and story, music, graphics, etc were all extras. Now, it seems like you watch a poorly written movie, and just attack random monsters between scenes.

[Gandor]

BehindTimes, sounds like you know what you like. I guess any genre of game has its base of rabid fans who long for the good old days. I mope around pining for a repeat of my first Escape Velocity experience. Or my awe at Deus Ex. I guess a lot of it is nostalgia. I totally agree with you about game length. It's frustrating to be an "adult" and try to play a game. But then, I would suspect that most of the people into these old school games discovered them as teens, when we all had a lot more time. Interesting that you say the story was incidental, since I sort of had the idea the story was important, but like I say I never played the classics like Wizardry, Ultima, etc. so I don't know from personal experience. Eschalon bills itself as old school and it certainly has a story, though I don't know how strong yet as I'm still early in the game.

[acoustibop]

I think that the bottom line is that, more and more, game developers are getting the opportunity to use more and more grandiose graphics and sound for their games, and this is what they're getting hung up on.

Talk to anyone playing games now - do they talk about the game and how you play it? No, they talk about all the special effects there are in the game, and how well their system copes with it. I even know people who won't play through a game 'till they've got a walkthrough to follow...

When graphics and sound weren't so all-important, game developers used to have to make the game itself the focus of attention,and this meant the game had to be good to sell. Now that the graphics and sound aspects have become so important, they don't have to bother about making a good game, and they don't.

[BehindTimes]

I think that the bottom line is that, more and more, game developers are getting the opportunity to use more and more grandiose graphics and sound for their games, and this is what they're getting hung up on.

Talk to anyone playing games now - do they talk about the game and how you play it? No, they talk about all the special effects there are in the game, and how well their system copes with it. I even know people who won't play through a game 'till they've got a walkthrough to follow...

When graphics and sound weren't so all-important, game developers used to have to make the game itself the focus of attention,and this meant the game had to be good to sell. Now that the graphics and sound aspects have become so important, they don't have to bother about making a good game, and they don't.

I can't agree with this. Games have always been about pushing the latest and greatest, and have always sold on this, and it's misleading to state that old games worried about gameplay instead.

From Spacewar in the 1960's to Crysis in the 2000's. Look at what games were the most popular on PCs. In the 1980s it was the adventure game genre. And the adventure game genre pushed the PC to capabilities never seen before. I remember when Mystery House and King's Quest came out, the same arguement about the new computer games only caring about graphcis was also made. Mystery House and King's Quest compared to the interactive fiction of the day were just pathetic in terms of gameplay. But they sold. King's Quest had commands such as "get carrot" vs the interactive fiction which understood phrases such as "talk to the woman by the bar who has red hair". And what happened to the genre? It died when it wasn't the pusher of great graphics and sound.

And then in the 1990's you had the first person shooter. Doom and Wolfenstein are pretty pathetic games in terms of gameplay, yet they sold wonders. Doom came out around the time of System Shock, which was much more advanced and had a lot more substance, but it sold alot worse.

People buy that which is marketed. And it's just easier to market multimedia than it is gameplay. Game's have gotten much more advanced, not only in graphics and sound, but gameplay, story, etc. It's just that as technology advances, the games which can display such technology change, and along with a lot of new features, some older features which many of us remember fondly are just not feasible.

@Gandor:

And along the same lines, I do think that the story in an RPG is incidental. Forget quality for a moment. The medium which the story is portrayed, in this case, a computer game, presents multiple limitations which books and movies just don't have. A good book or movie presents a series of emotions to the user, and thus, outside of being forced to read something, most likely you'll be drawn in on the author's ride. With computer games however, you're in control of the ride. Take The Fellowship of the Ring. In the book, Frodo is scared of the Nazgûl, and has to flee his home. How would you present the same emotions to a computer game user as a book reader? Remember, if you enforce limitions, not only are you limiting your audience by the genre, but now you're also limiting your audience by skill, etc (such as if you wanted to put a time limit where the player wanted to take his time.) Also, certain things such as having the antagonist win in the end just are not feasible in computer games. Do you really want to play a game for 20 hours only to find out that it was all for nothing? When you read, the story is the journey and the conclusion is the reward regardless of the outcome.

[acoustibop]

Certainly they've always been about the graphics effects etc, BehindTimes. But the difference is that once a game had to be a good game, regardless of the graphics - now it seems that that graphics and effects by themselves are often the only concern.

[Rune_74]

Funny I don't know if you guys remember this...but origin(ultima devs) were always about pushing the graphics up every release, you can see it as you look over their games not just ultimas either....wing commander etc...just to add wood to the fire here.

[adamantyr]

Funny I don't know if you guys remember this...but origin(ultima devs) were always about pushing the graphics up every release, you can see it as you look over their games not just ultimas either....wing commander etc...just to add wood to the fire here.

That was basically when things started to go horribly wrong in the industry, actually. Chris Crawford actually blames Origin for developing Wing Commander for a million+ budget. It actually did not pay for itself; it took both expansion packs to finally cover the loss. But after that, the spiral down into "must spend a lot of dough in development to get the greatest biggest hit ever!" started. And we're still stuck in that pit.

The problem nowadays is that most of the budget goes for graphics engines, artwork, music, and atmosphere. Too many Hollywood types in charge, who just see the game as something you add to the mix.

Ideally, a game SHOULD be able to be designed with a text parser at its lowest level. Any game. Granted, it won't play the same as something with a graphic engine, but anything you can express in graphics can be expressed abstractly with text. It's similar to how animatics are produced for movies that use CGI or optical effects; so that they can see the flow of the movie. A computer game works in the opposite way, you need an abstract description of how it works, and the visuals come later.

Adamantyr

[Amazadh Kristeopolous]

Yep, It's all about balance. Whilst it is really nice to see your little character actually do what you had in mind to the monster/NPC/door/trap/etc, it don't count for nought to me if the plot is crap, the dialogue is dire/non-existent, and scenery is so realistic that you can't work out where the f*** you are..!!!

Having started with text-only adventure games, I do appreciate the extraordinary graphics that are now possible, but it was those adventure games that propelled advances in 'fuzzy logic', allowing more realistic inter-reaction with NPCs, with increasingly complex chains of possibilities being created by your responses to previous characters.

It's probably that I am a much older than usual gamer, and my reflexes are starting to struggle with the manic RTS type of games like Quake Arena, or Unreal Tournament; so thoughtful TBS RPG games like Eschalon are much less stressful!! I like to see interesting conversation with NPCs, twisty plots, unexpected problems, intriguing loot; all those things that were so much fun when you were reading a book.

Oh, and I better say just how much I'm really enjoying Eschalon! It's not perfect, but it's a lot of fun, and sufficiently difficult to keep you trying. I've done 21 hours with my first character, a ranger (that was my very first character in AD&D over 25 years ago!), my only upset is that I finally upgraded my OS to OSX 10.4.11, and the game keeps CTD.

I'm going to have to reinstall it if that happens again.... ...I'll just try for a bit longer and see if I can defeat some of these really heavy mercenaries near Blackwood... ...and those nasty velociraptor-like creatures - whose nasty brain came up with those..?????!!!!

[Mad Marauder]

What's the common thread that runs through most good, old crpgs? TEXT. And your imagination. Even when you had some graphical representation on the screen, it was the text descriptions that fired the imagination. And pages and pages of descriptions still leaves gaps that can only be filled in by the mind. When you use your imagination to paint the world, it becomes very personal. It's your unique world then.

And the better games were open enough that you could mold it to your own morality. If you wanted to steal and murder, as long as it wasn't intergal to the quest, or help every poor soul, well, whatever.

In my opinion, as the graphics got better, the games got worse. The designers relied more and more on the graphics to tell the story and less and less on the player feeling involved.

Nowadays with the 'real-time' stuff, you don't have time to think about the environment around you. It just flashes by. You don't have the time to sit and think "Now I'm gonna go over there and whack that mindflayer then zap that goblin over there with a lightning bolt." It's a little more satisfying to me if it takes a few minutes to do that.

[Rep]

Hi everyone, just registered to be able to respond to this thread (and because I consider myself an old-school gamer myself (CRPG-wise I've covered Nethack (still playing that), Wizardry 7, Dungeon Master, some Might&Magics, Fate-Gates of Dawn,..., Baldurs Gate, Morrowind, and a few more recent ones. I still plan to play Ultima IV and VII.))
Anyway, I'll have to fully agree with Mad Marauder here. With old style RPGs the graphics could only give hints of what the environment looked like and you had to mentally "descend" into your avatar and imagine for yourself what it looked and feeled like to be that character. Nowadays, with everything being displayed in full detail for you, you don't have to imagine anything, therefore you stay out of your character more.
Video killed the video game star, actually.

I'll admit though, this theory may just be the attempt to rationalize my nostalgia.