Top 10 Ways to Fix JRPGs

[Scoobes]

RageBot said:

Scoobes said:

RageBot said:
And I LOL about the pepole who think WRPGs "evolved", change isn't the same as evolution, WRPGs today are an extremely dumbed-down version of their former selves, and anyone who will play Planescape: Torment will quickly realise that I am right, and he was wrong.

Planscape Torment easily has the best story in gaming, period. However, what you call dumbing down, I call evolution and refinement. Part of the reason why WRPGs have become so popular isn't just the technology improving and allowing for more interactive story-telling, but also the fact that these games are now more accessible for people beyond the niche hardcore RPG players. The story-based decisions I'm making these days are far more involving than most old school RPGs (except Planescape).

So, you call going from niche to mainstream evolution, I call it dumbing down.

Now, the decisions seem more involving because, because of the technology, you can have "bigger things", but all in all, the plots, the characters, the costumization, everything is just so watered-down these days.

Pepole call Oblicion a good WRPG, but there's really nothing good about it except the graphics for it's time, the quests are less creative, the leveling system, everything just seems to be dumbed down so they can sell to the masses.

Consider it this way, five years from now, will pepole talk with more passion about PS:T or about ME? Will pepole even talk about ME five years from now? Pepole have pretty much stopped talking about Oblivion by this point.

Firstly, after playing Morrowind and Oblivion, I still preferred Oblivion. The Dark Brotherhood quests were great, and much praised at the time of release. The levelling system I did feel was dumbed down but not a huge amount. A seperate skill group for axes instead of just "Blunt" would have been nice, but at the end of the day was it really needed? The battle system not relying on an invisible dice roll as well I thought was an improvement as it plays in First-Person, so when you see an arrow hit, I expect it to do damage. If you really want an example of "dumbing-down" you should look at the Deus Ex series.

Secondly, people still are talking passionately about Oblivion, a quick look on TES nexus will show you that. People are still bringing out incredible mods for it. I'm still playing it from time to time because of those mods and I talk about it as passionately as Planescape Torment. Further, I think people will still talk about Mass Effect as it's the first part of 3 for one thing, and it's done a much better job of creating a universe than Halo, yet people will still talk passionately about Halo in 5yrs.

Another important factor is other people's ignorance. More people will have played Mass Effect and Oblivion than will have played Planescape Torment. Me and you will be in a minority (I think we are already). Sad but true.