What you get for your money

[Lady Dragonfly]

After winning $60 you start thinking of purchasing a new CRPG. You have certain preferences and there are several games to choose from.
What game feature would influence your choice most?

[Siberys]

Storyline and/or fully customizable characters. It's about all I really need.

[Magrus]

bOOBS ND gUNSi!u!i!

Erm, sorry, I think I channeled some 13 year old from arkansas or something for a minute.

What game feature? Well, to be brutully honest, most games today are utter, complete and total crap. It would take a lot to get me to spend my money on one. I would want to see proof that the engine works without bugs first of all. Second, that the control interface actually functions properly and is user friendly. Third, I would need a decent amount of action and excitement mixed with a decent storyline.

After all of that, I would say the most important part to me is...character creation and growth. Some days I don't bother with actually playing a game. I just build characters for a while and then do something else instead. It's generally more interesting than playing the game itself to me. They are generally dreadfully slow and boring randomly through the game. Making you take hours to run through a specific part where you just think "Ugh, why on earth did they put this idiocy in here??!!" Afterwhich, you get to the "good" part, and it ends up not at all making up for the bad part you just forced yourself to get through. Which leads to drinking, and stomping on the game disc.

[dragon wench]

It *has* to have a decent story to it.
Interestingly... I haven't bought any new games recently... and it's not just because of my old computer either....

My second priority is complex NPC interaction, and I would have also selected that had you made it a multiple option poll.

[Lady Dragonfly]

Come on guys, I said MOST. You CHOSE to spend your money, you created and customized your character, it is given. I could not list all possible scenarios, could I? Will you vote please? PLEASE? :mischief:

[fable]

Well, I voted. But then, I spend long hours away from SYM, praying for my soul. All these other SYMers have long since sunk into a morass of reeking decadence. It takes a lot of effort to get them to focus what few brain cells haven't yet been torched by non-stop parties and worldwide sprees.

[Magrus]

I would have voted dear, however, your voting choices did not fit into what I wanted most. Hence, I did not vote for a sub-par choice. Which is why I don't vote for people in government. Sub-par.

[Deadalready]

I try to find a game with replay value, games that can be vastly different depending on character choices and events. Usually I find games get really boring once I've finished them, then I never touch them again.

So my bang for buck goes to being able to play again and do things slightly differently to get a vastly different experience.


I must admit a story helps though, or a good sense of accomplishment. I've gotten bored of games because I playing didn't seem to give anything rewarding.

[Lady Dragonfly]

We all want different things from the games we play. And that is fine. Variety is a good thing (when there is one).
Some of us grumble about lack of games with interesting, original storyline.

Now let us dream.
Imagine that the game industry heard the outcry. Now most of the RPGs have a well-written storyline with a complex NPC interaction and stuff; it is not an issue any more.

Then the reviewers might say: “This is a very good game if you don’t mind clunky interface and outdated graphics”. My point is that a really good game should include lots of features to appeal to majority of the gamers. Is it possible at all? I think it is. The market is getting saturated so quality should become more and more important, including the quality of storylines and gameplay. Don’t you agree? Or my dream is a hallucination?

[fable]

Then the reviewers might say: “This is a very good game if you don’t mind clunky interface and outdated graphics”. My point is that a really good game should include lots of features to appeal to majority of the gamers. Is it possible at all? I think it is. The market is getting saturated so quality should become more and more important, including the quality of storylines and gameplay. Don’t you agree? Or my dream is a hallucination?

Do you mean, is it an hallucination that gamers will start wanting quality? Yes, of course it is, but you should consider that it may just be a bad curry, and not some drug that produced this idea. Paddy Chayefsky, the fine playwright, once stated that "Television is democracy at its ugliest." Have people ever gotten fed up and demanded quality from it? Do people refuse to put up with awful music, or terrible books, or 10th rate politicians? No; the owners of each industry merely repackage the worst product for the next group of youngsters whose attention and money they wish to grab. And they succeed, too.

[Lady Dragonfly]

*takes Imodium*

My vision is cleared along with my insides. Time to wake up and smell the coffee. And to have a look around.
Hey, you painted a very dreary picture. Can't you see anything promising at all on the industrial horizon? NWM2 might not be so shabby after all, Gothic3 sounds good, and there are some hints about other possible marvels in the near future.

[Magrus]

Do people refuse to put up with awful music, or terrible books, or 10th rate politicians?

I do. I boycott anything that doesn't meet my standards. Whether or not it "saves the world" or whatever, I don't care. I won't vote for someone who's incompetant, I won't purchase crap. Which is to say, it has been a long time since I have bought a video game. I do not see it likely that I will purchasing any anytime soon either. So long as people keep buying crap games, crap games will continue to be produced.

[Robnark]

I feel slightly grubby by voting for comat system over original story, but I shall try to defend myself. I voted for the elaborate combat system because, well, I like tinkering and you do end up with lifespan and variability of gameplay more or less by default. but then, I go all misty-eyed over PS:T, and the combat felt, to me, fairly mediocre.

I suppose the problem is the type of RPG. I've been spending a frankly unjustifiable amount of time on various roguelikes of late, and it is not much of a generalisation to say that I was reading books with more complex characters, motivations and plot by the age of four. and really much the same goes for the whole range of the more mechanically minded games, through the simpler diabloesques and the strategy RPGs. while Final Fantasy Tactics may be a rival of PS:T for my affections, I have played it through several times and the plot is unengaging and tedious, even when it briefly strays into the realms of comprehensibility.

I would contend that outside of text-based and point-and-click adventure games, there isn't really an established niche for games that concentrate on plot, rather than treat it as more of a presentational matter. however many prefixes you attatch to RPG types (action, strategy, massively multiplayer &c. &c.) 'Well Written' won't be among them, maybe because writers with or without talent are bought in to work to a design, not dictate one. maybe because it's hard to sell what is basically a bafflingly intricate choose-your-own-adventure as a design document. very possibly because, unlike shiny graphics, the only medium for demonstrating the plot is a playable demo, and unless you're trying to grab your audience in that particularly truncated timeframe, it won't always make much impact there either.

whatever it is, either you have the patience and self-discipline to stick to buying the well plotted games, or you settle for less and look for games of a type you enjoy and, quite often, whine about the story and skip the cutscenes, and read a book later. like I tend to.

[Siberys]

Speaking of the thread title itself, you should see the people complaining over at the Mage Knight Apocalypse forums.

I can agree that you need a playable game when you buy it, that's just consumer needs, you buy something, it should be usable as soon as you get it. But some of the stuff they complain about is just stupid.

"The sound is terrible, it's not ambient enough and there's no actual bounce to it like Morrowind had." Realism versus crap, you want crap? Go buy some dragonball Z or Naruto game.

"Everything in the game was stolen from World of Warcraft!" It's horrible, I know. Yet they can get away with abilities leveling up when you use them rather than just a level up in general, much like both morrowind and oblivion had.

"This game doesn't even work with the standards of Mage Knight on your table." Umm, that's because this is a video game, your table cannot play it. Tabletop games and video games will always be different. Look at Dungeons and Dragons Versus Neverwinter Nights.

Really, I just cannot fathom why people do not "grade" the game based on something that's actually valuable. Again, anything that you can do in a game and will affect everybody else, that's good in a game. Character skills and uber items, not the essentials of a game at all. Storyline? While it's kinda shy in Mage Knight Apocalypse, it's there and pretty decent, but they don't care. They focused all there attention on the feature "Thousands of items" and hated the fact that the items were recycled (used same graphics with different stats), much like Diablo 2 did with normal, exceptional and elite items.

Hmmm....makes me wonder about gamers.

[Lady Dragonfly]

whatever it is, either you have the patience and self-discipline to stick to buying the well plotted games, or you settle for less and look for games of a type you enjoy and, quite often, whine about the story and skip the cutscenes, and read a book later. like I tend to.

A very good point IMO. I other words, stay aloof and unmolested or get real.
I am sure the uncompromising purists would disagree. But people complained about cultural decadence for eons.

Edit: Yes, everybody chooses their game according to their (current) preference; there is nothing wrong about it.

[fable]

I do. I boycott anything that doesn't meet my standards. Whether or not it "saves the world" or whatever, I don't care. I won't vote for someone who's incompetant, I won't purchase crap. Which is to say, it has been a long time since I have bought a video game. I do not see it likely that I will purchasing any anytime soon either. So long as people keep buying crap games, crap games will continue to be produced.

Yes, but neither you nor I is typical of the average consumer, thank the gods.

*takes Imodium*

That'll help you, I'll be bound. Or rather, you will.

Hey, you painted a very dreary picture. Can't you see anything promising at all on the industrial horizon? NWM2 might not be so shabby after all, Gothic3 sounds good, and there are some hints about other possible marvels in the near future.

Unless someone with a great deal of money chooses to buck the trend and make niche products for intelligent, discerning gamers, I don't see things improving. There will still be exciting action games, and those remarkable kids who can buy one arcade game after another and play them as though they weren't all the same will continue to be satisfied. But excellent RPGs, like turn-based strategy games, are simply not in the cards for the future. I know too many developers who agree with me on this, and who are turning to producing different titles outside RPGs or strategy, as a result: Ascaron, Anino, Frog City, Larian Studios, etc. And the ones that are still doing the same thing are dumbing them down to a point where a 10-year-old can be perfectly happy with the result.

This doesn't mean there aren't other options available. Buy an older title. Watch for the odd indy game that might do what you want, at least on a low budget, like Positech. Check out other media. Find a group for table-top roleplaying, if that suits your fancy. Just don't IMO expect things to improve in the foreseeable future if you feel RPGs have become kiddie-oriented, because they're making more money, and that brings the industry sniffing like dogs. Which they are.

[Lady Dragonfly]

This doesn't mean there aren't other options available. Buy an older title. Watch for the odd indy game that might do what you want, at least on a low budget, like Positech. Check out other media. Find a group for table-top roleplaying, if that suits your fancy. Just don't IMO expect things to improve in the foreseeable future if you feel RPGs have become kiddie-oriented, because they're making more money, and that brings the industry sniffing like dogs. Which they are.

I tend to agree with you about the older titles though I already own all of those I care about. Yesterday I was desperate enough to buy both KotOR titles on Amazon just to be able to understand why some people are so crazy about that kiddie junk. I also downloaded the last NWN premium module. Now I have to convince myself to play all this stuff.
Gosh, the table-top games... I don't think so.
I am reading a book on Papal History (one of many I've read on the subject) now and it is more interesting than any games.

[Siberys]

There are probably more adults interested in Star Wars than there are kids.

Adults = star wars.
Kids = yu gi oh and pokemon.

And KoTOR is DEFINITELY not a kiddie game, I don't remember if it is rated M, but it should be just because of what you can do in the game.

[Lady Dragonfly]

I feel better now because I am planning to play KotOR until NWN2 is available. It rated "Teen" and I heard different opinions. I prefer to form my own opinion rather than rely on some other's and that is why I bought both games. The reason I missed these games is that I am not a fan of a futuristic setting.

[DesR85]

Storyline/plot of the game is the main criteria that I look to in any game. To me, it doesn't matter if the story is original or not. Just as long as the story/plot of the game is good and draws you in, that's what really matters to me. I don't expect an 'original' story since it's hard to come up with new and original storylines these days since most of the ideas have been taken up already.

Another factor I look for in any game is good combat mechanics and controls. No matter how good the story is, if the combat mechanics and controls are terrible, I would gladly avoid them.

Another thing that would greatly influence my decision to buy a game is the demo of a game. If I enjoyed playing the demo, then I'm looking forward to buying the game. If a game doesn't have one, then, I'll rely on recommendations from friends and other outside sources.