That old RPG "feel"

[Rukh]

New RPGs never seem to be able to replicate it. I thought maybe it was nostalgia more than anything, but I played Suikoden II way after the fact and it definitely had that feel. Games like Final Fantasy IV and VI, Suikoden series, Chrono Trigger, etc. The thing they had that really made them is they really sold the "flavor" of the story. It was in your head. I think that's something that ultra realistic graphics have a hard time doing, because it's all given to you, you don't create it yourself. When they released 3d re-rendered version of FFVI characters, it actually broke down the immersive world feel for me, because they violated the creation I had in my mind.

There's a reason that anime in this day and age is so popular, even though it's just drawn and often purposely not ultra realistic. It does enough to present the story, but still lets you fill in the details yourself. That's something that videogames still haven't learned well, for the most part. Some indie studios do it because they don't have the budget for "omggraphics", but for the most part, major studios still seem to be missing this.

What got me thinking about this is GWII does this a bit. Its still pretty realistic, but the artistic sense they put to it still does give you that immersion flavor a bit. Nothing like the games of old, but its the first game in quite some time I got that from. The characters become more than just how they look, you can imagine them in action, you get a feel for them in your mind. That's something that didn't happen in TERA for me. The game was visually beautiful, but the characters were just characters. I couldn't imagine them going about lives in a world. They were just polygons. WoW actually has it a bit, but one of the biggest things that made that for me was fan artwork. It aided in seeing the characters and world in a new creative way that brought it to life more than the actual game did.

I don't know if its just the art style of if its because the creators actually took this to mind building the game, but this really is one of the big draws for me.

I know this is kind of rambling, but it's not something I've really seen talked about. Do you get that "alive" feel from GWII that you don't get from other games? Do you get a sense of world "flavor" that makes people dress up as characters and go to conventions and the like? :P

[Deleted]

just as i look up from Terranigma on the SNES I see this post, old RPG's are boss no getting around it.

same sort of feeling from GW2 ? not for me sadly maybe for others.

[Blackmist]

Immersion is about wanting to be immersed. It's as much about you as it is the game.

GW2 didn't really grab me during my brief time with it. It's certainly no Fallout 3, or Skyrim, or Mass Effect. MMOs are going to struggle to immerse more than a single player experience anyway. It's hard to take a story seriously, when the quest giver is already talking to Shadokillamofo...

[Suikoden]

just as i look up from Terranigma on the SNES I see this post, old RPG's are boss no getting around it.

same sort of feeling from GW2 ? not for me sadly maybe for others.

Omg yes Terranigma. That game is a classic in itself.

i gotta agree that GW2 stirs something in me. More than what could be said for most games on the market now.

[Deleted]

I found GW2 to immerse me perhaps even more than things like Skyrim and other games of the style. I think the players made it feel more like... it was the real world. Also, being into the game helped.
I think it'll vary a lot.

[kendro1200]

Immersion is about wanting to be immersed. It's as much about you as it is the game.

GW2 didn't really grab me during my brief time with it. It's certainly no Fallout 3, or Skyrim, or Mass Effect. MMOs are going to struggle to immerse more than a single player experience anyway. It's hard to take a story seriously, when the quest giver is already talking to Shadokillamofo...

Except for the most part you never have to talk to the NPCs, and with the events moving all by themselves, rather than being static, I think GW2 does a fairly good job at immersion, far better than most MMOs and RPGs that have come out recently. Wanderlust is a good tool to get immersion going, and GW2 pulls it off pretty well. That said, some of the personal story elements can be turn offs as well, for instance, I didn't like the human personal story at all. I loved the Sylvari and Asura personal stories. There was even one part in the Sylvari personal story that I had to stop and think about exactly what I was going to do. I actually hit a moral dilemma, caught between curiosity and a utilitarian moral imperative, both aspects and choices were important to me, I wanted to do both, but I had to pick one. That moment was a wonderful immersion tool, because I became invested into that choice.

For the most part though, I haven't been as heavily immersed in an RPG as I was in some rpg's sequel on the dreamcast that I can't quite remember the title of, before that it was Dark Cloud that had me caught fairly well. The dreamcast one was my favorite though, it's kinda sad, I remember the plot and why I liked the game, but I can't remember the title. I can't get it out either because it's buried in my closet, which might as well be the Ark from Indiana Jones.

edit: Grandia 2! I just remembered after I posted and closed the window for this thread.

[Deleted]

Part of the old RPG feeling is that they are just that...old. Old and nostalgic.

Never do I feel the way I feel about any of the Black Isle RPGs, Morrowind, Shadowrun, FF, Ultima, Phantasy Star, etc anymore. I refuse to believe however that contemporary RPGs are inferior to past iterations in the genre, so I attribute the feeling to nostalgia (in part).

GW2 never gave me that feeling during the beta, doesn't mean I won't love it, or at least like it.

[Rukh]

Part of the old RPG feeling is that they are just that...old. Old and nostalgic.

Never do I feel the way I feel about any of the Black Isle RPGs, Morrowind, Shadowrun, FF, Ultima, Phantasy Star, etc anymore. I refuse to believe however that contemporary RPGs are inferior to past iterations in the genre, so I attribute the feeling to nostalgia (in part).

GW2 never gave me that feeling during the beta, doesn't mean I won't love it, or at least like it.

See that's what I was saying though. I thought it might just be nostalgia too, but I had never played Suikoden II until just a couple years ago. It was the last of the series to be made in the classic overworld/sprite style. 3 went 3d style (and actually did a fairly good job of giving a feel for the world). So playing that, the music worked with the lack of graphics and still gave that feeling that you were experiencing a real place. So now I think it's more the attention to making everything work just so to give a consistent feeling. The music has to work with the art style, the story, etc.

[leafs43]

Old rpgs focus on setting, story and characters.


New rpgs focus on how awesome you can make explosions look and how much content you can cut before consumers get pissed off only to turn around and sell that content as dlc.



It's like going from a classic Steven Spielberg film to a Michael Bay film.

[Rukh]

Old rpgs focus on setting, story and characters.


New rpgs focus on how awesome you can make explosions look and how much content you can cut before consumers get pissed off only to turn around and sell that content as dlc.



It's like going from a classic Steven Spielberg film to a Michael Bay film.

I think this is a super great analogy right here. Thanks for that. When graphers were so limited by technology, companies were forced to use other means to really sell the story. Now graphics are really not limited and companies loose themselves competing for most pixels per nanometer and lose the rest of the stuff. Sometimes in art, restrictions are a really good thing to have to force people to be creative in other areas. Haiku for instance is a great example.

[Mercadi]

Old rpgs focus on setting, story and characters.


New rpgs focus on how awesome you can make explosions look and how much content you can cut before consumers get pissed off only to turn around and sell that content as dlc.



It's like going from a classic Steven Spielberg film to a Michael Bay film.

I feel the same. Old games could not have realistic graphic, so they focused on making them interesting story and setting-wise.
Now photo-realism is possible, but hard to do, and most of efforts of modern companies are being put into 3d modeling/animations.
Some developerstill manage to make good characters, though. Bioware comes to mind first, and Eidos.

[leafs43]

I feel the same. Old games could not have realistic graphic, so they focused on making them interesting story and setting-wise.
Now photo-realism is possible, but hard to do, and most of efforts of modern companies are being put into 3d modeling/animations.
Some developerstill manage to make good characters, though. Bioware comes to mind first, and Eidos.

Bioware was one of the only companies focusing on characters, setting and story....until EA showed up.


Bioware has become just another crap factory. (see: Mass Effect 3's ending)

[Maarius]

If you take your time playing GW2 you will see all the little details which make the game very immersive imho.



The world just feels alive, NPCs start to talk to each other. I had such fun dialogues in the old RPGs and found those in GW2 again. It doesn't feel like a gimmick, it happened everywhere I went. Furthermore those NPCs in some cases have their own little stories and agendas:




Imho it's the little details that make a world feel alive, had those in the old RPGs and found these again in GW2 after a looong time

[barackopala]

MMO-RPG >/< Old RPG.

[Spl4sh3r]

I remember the old RPG feel I had from playing Might & Magic VII and VIII.

[DrakeWurrum]

It's hard to take a story seriously, when the quest giver is already talking to Shadokillamofo...

JSYK, you're the one who named your character Shadokillamofo. :P

For me, it's hard to take the story seriously because the story-writing for GW2 just isn't amazing or believable.

[Dodrin]

JSYK, you're the one who named your character Shadokillamofo. :P

For me, it's hard to take the story seriously because the story-writing for GW2 just isn't amazing or believable.

I feel like GW2 is the J.R.R. Tolkien of MMO story telling. Great world story, very meh small-scale stories.

[Fojos]

Bioware has become just another crap factory. (see: Mass Effect 3's ending)

A disappointing ending doesn't make a game bad. Move along and stop raging, it's overdue already.

[styopa]

I'd like it if they'd have a setting that would ALLOW you to be immersed:
- no hearts, vistas, points of interest, icons on the minimap
- no overhead icons, floating map-thingys, etc in-game.

Let me be mentally slip into the world, and stop reminding me that I'm sitting on a computer playing a game.

[DrakeWurrum]

I feel like GW2 is the J.R.R. Tolkien of MMO story telling. Great world story, very meh small-scale stories.

Can't really agree with this. Tolkien's writing was actually fairly complex, unless I'm misremembering.

GW2 story is full of mustachio-twirling villains and paragons of justice and giant world-destroying dragons to slay. The only thing missing is that our characters aren't wearing colorful tights emblazoned with a logo representing their moniker.

Not that Sauron wasn't a gigantic evil and obvious villain, nor his armies, but the story had plenty of intricacies. GW2 plot would do well on, say, Power Rangers.