Roit, so I've been playing CRPGs for quite a bit of time now, and am just curious on what your thoughts are on how you prefer the cast and on how to play them in Computer RPGs.
(and for the record, let's not turn this into some silly "My RPG is SO much better than your RPG" debate, s'right?)
My thoughts...
Player Generated Hero - Pre-generated player-controlled party
Examples: Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur's Gate saga
Most well-known type for most computer RPGs, I think. The player creates one character, chooses the sex/race/stats for him/her, decides on a particular name that fits, and is then thrown into the game. Along the way, he picks up a few other characters who join him on the quest for freedom and such.
In this particular case, the player can not only move his own character, but the rest of the group as well, deciding how to use their abilities as well. The non-player created characters tend to have personalities of their own over which the player has no control at all.
I'd say that this is one of my favorite type of gameplay. You have complete control on how to completely work out one character, while having a neat group of personalities along for the ride as well. Plus, having the ability to control them allows the player to come up with all sorts of strategy(especially since I recently started Baldur's Gate have I seen this in action) during combat.
Player Generated Hero - Pre-generated computer-controlled party
Examples: Fallout, Neverwinter Nights
So now the player is still allowed to create his very own character and all, all right. And the party that joins him have been created before by the developers.
However, in this particular example, the player only has control over his own character and the others are controlled by the AI. This tends to have interesting results when the AI doesn't completely work well enough. On the other hand, it also avoids the odd moments when a character behaves a bit out-of-character during a fight when the player controls him. An example would be when Carth says that they shouldn't be rude nor threaten the poor old beggar and is happily blasting him away a few seconds later.
If the AI works well enough, I like this sort of gameplay. Allows me to completely focus on one character, instead of an entire group. However, as mentioned, the AI should work well enough, and the characters had better have a bit of a personality. The original NWN campaign was rather shoddy because of this(granted, apparantly the henchmen were added at the last moment on player's request), the later Neverwinter Nights XPs tended to have characters with quite a bit of personality(Like little Deekin).
Player Generated Hero - Player-generated party
Examples: Icewind Dale series(?), The Avernum Trilogy
Frankly, I have very little experience with these type of games, so I can't write another epic paragraph about it. Simply put, the entire party is put together by the players at the start of the game.
Me, I have yet to complete a game that uses this type of gameplay. The entire party tends to have no personality whatsoever, and frankly, I miss that.
Player Generated Hero - No party
Examples: The entire Elder Scrolls saga(?), Diablo(if you'd call it a CRPG... I don't), Rogue-like games
So, that's it. It's just the player's character that is the sole purpose that evil hasn't taken over yet. Armies after armies are slaughtered when the PC comes along, and drives them back into the abyss.
I suppose that sometimes another character might join up with the character, either to be escorted or to help out a bit t times, but throughout most of the game, the player is all alone.
Meh, this is the sort of RPGs that I usually really can't play for long. It's one of the reasons why I never got into Morrowind. I usually dislike games where it's you against the world as it is(FPSes, anyone?), and enjoy to at least have group. Unless the game itself is bloody good(The free addictive Ancient Domains of Mystery comes to mind), I tend to avoid these.
Pre-generated Hero - Pre-generated player-controlled party
Examples: Final Fantasy games(aside from the first one, I suppose), Betrayal At Krondor, Planescape: Torment
(and to be honest, I'm somewhat hesitant of putting Planescape Torment here. Despite the fact that you can still customise the Nameless One quite a bit with statistics, character and class later on, I'd still put it in this category. The Nameless One has quite too much of a history and background to feel that the player really created him in my opinion)
Quite, so now the player has no hand at all in the characters that he's going to play. Their personalities, classes, gender have already been set from the start, including that of the hero. In these cases, the player tends to have very little say in how the characters develop(not always, see PS:T), how relations develop or how the story works out.
This one depends for me. If the story works really well and the characters are properly worked into the storyline, I can excuse the fact that I didn't get to generate any of the characters. Betrayal At Krondor comes to mind. Seeing as how it's set in Feist's Midkemia world, it would've been odd if the player got to set the statistics for any of the existing characters. Granted, there are three new characters in BaK, but their backgrounds tended to reflect their respective skills.
Plus, these type of RPGs tend to have one thing that you rarely see in other RPGs, and that's that the storyline tends to split up at time. To point to Betrayal at Krondor again, halfway through the game, the story splits up into two different storylines. One party travels away to halt an upcoming invasion, while the other group goes on the usual epic fantasy adventure, travelling to different worlds and the like. In the final chapter, the group joins up again. The average Final Fantasy games that I've seen tend to use this as well.
Granted, Knights of the Old Republic also tried this at times, but it generally was more of a little subquests.
(I still would've liked to see the final battle in KotOR to have been a split-group effort with one party defending the Rakata from Sith Troopers, another party on the Star Forge fighting off hordes of Sith Knights, and the main hero facing off one-on-one with Malak)
If it works, I'm all for this.
Player-generated Heroes - Multiplayer
Examples: Neverwinter Nights(optional), Baldur's Gate(optional), Guildwar, various MMORPGs
No epic paragraph here either... frankly, the entire party consists of nothing more than characters who are all individually controlled by different players.
Depends, really. If you have a group of players who are a blast to game with, the experience is a complete blast and easily beats all the others. If there is but one player who is not quite able to work completely well with the party, it tends to bring everything down. (just ask JediGandalf about a particular Paladin...)
Biggest problem that I see here, aside from a problem player, is finding the right group to game with, and the usual scheduling.
Other
I'm sure you folks can think up something that I missed here. A game with a pre-generated party, but computer-controlled party members, a game where the entire game is controlled by the computer, that sorta thing.
So, your thoughts?
(and for the record, let's not turn this into some silly "My RPG is SO much better than your RPG" debate, s'right?)
My thoughts...
Player Generated Hero - Pre-generated player-controlled party
Examples: Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur's Gate saga
Most well-known type for most computer RPGs, I think. The player creates one character, chooses the sex/race/stats for him/her, decides on a particular name that fits, and is then thrown into the game. Along the way, he picks up a few other characters who join him on the quest for freedom and such.
In this particular case, the player can not only move his own character, but the rest of the group as well, deciding how to use their abilities as well. The non-player created characters tend to have personalities of their own over which the player has no control at all.
I'd say that this is one of my favorite type of gameplay. You have complete control on how to completely work out one character, while having a neat group of personalities along for the ride as well. Plus, having the ability to control them allows the player to come up with all sorts of strategy(especially since I recently started Baldur's Gate have I seen this in action) during combat.
Player Generated Hero - Pre-generated computer-controlled party
Examples: Fallout, Neverwinter Nights
So now the player is still allowed to create his very own character and all, all right. And the party that joins him have been created before by the developers.
However, in this particular example, the player only has control over his own character and the others are controlled by the AI. This tends to have interesting results when the AI doesn't completely work well enough. On the other hand, it also avoids the odd moments when a character behaves a bit out-of-character during a fight when the player controls him. An example would be when Carth says that they shouldn't be rude nor threaten the poor old beggar and is happily blasting him away a few seconds later.
If the AI works well enough, I like this sort of gameplay. Allows me to completely focus on one character, instead of an entire group. However, as mentioned, the AI should work well enough, and the characters had better have a bit of a personality. The original NWN campaign was rather shoddy because of this(granted, apparantly the henchmen were added at the last moment on player's request), the later Neverwinter Nights XPs tended to have characters with quite a bit of personality(Like little Deekin).
Player Generated Hero - Player-generated party
Examples: Icewind Dale series(?), The Avernum Trilogy
Frankly, I have very little experience with these type of games, so I can't write another epic paragraph about it. Simply put, the entire party is put together by the players at the start of the game.
Me, I have yet to complete a game that uses this type of gameplay. The entire party tends to have no personality whatsoever, and frankly, I miss that.
Player Generated Hero - No party
Examples: The entire Elder Scrolls saga(?), Diablo(if you'd call it a CRPG... I don't), Rogue-like games
So, that's it. It's just the player's character that is the sole purpose that evil hasn't taken over yet. Armies after armies are slaughtered when the PC comes along, and drives them back into the abyss.
I suppose that sometimes another character might join up with the character, either to be escorted or to help out a bit t times, but throughout most of the game, the player is all alone.
Meh, this is the sort of RPGs that I usually really can't play for long. It's one of the reasons why I never got into Morrowind. I usually dislike games where it's you against the world as it is(FPSes, anyone?), and enjoy to at least have group. Unless the game itself is bloody good(The free addictive Ancient Domains of Mystery comes to mind), I tend to avoid these.
Pre-generated Hero - Pre-generated player-controlled party
Examples: Final Fantasy games(aside from the first one, I suppose), Betrayal At Krondor, Planescape: Torment
(and to be honest, I'm somewhat hesitant of putting Planescape Torment here. Despite the fact that you can still customise the Nameless One quite a bit with statistics, character and class later on, I'd still put it in this category. The Nameless One has quite too much of a history and background to feel that the player really created him in my opinion)
Quite, so now the player has no hand at all in the characters that he's going to play. Their personalities, classes, gender have already been set from the start, including that of the hero. In these cases, the player tends to have very little say in how the characters develop(not always, see PS:T), how relations develop or how the story works out.
This one depends for me. If the story works really well and the characters are properly worked into the storyline, I can excuse the fact that I didn't get to generate any of the characters. Betrayal At Krondor comes to mind. Seeing as how it's set in Feist's Midkemia world, it would've been odd if the player got to set the statistics for any of the existing characters. Granted, there are three new characters in BaK, but their backgrounds tended to reflect their respective skills.
Plus, these type of RPGs tend to have one thing that you rarely see in other RPGs, and that's that the storyline tends to split up at time. To point to Betrayal at Krondor again, halfway through the game, the story splits up into two different storylines. One party travels away to halt an upcoming invasion, while the other group goes on the usual epic fantasy adventure, travelling to different worlds and the like. In the final chapter, the group joins up again. The average Final Fantasy games that I've seen tend to use this as well.
Granted, Knights of the Old Republic also tried this at times, but it generally was more of a little subquests.
(I still would've liked to see the final battle in KotOR to have been a split-group effort with one party defending the Rakata from Sith Troopers, another party on the Star Forge fighting off hordes of Sith Knights, and the main hero facing off one-on-one with Malak)
If it works, I'm all for this.
Player-generated Heroes - Multiplayer
Examples: Neverwinter Nights(optional), Baldur's Gate(optional), Guildwar, various MMORPGs
No epic paragraph here either... frankly, the entire party consists of nothing more than characters who are all individually controlled by different players.
Depends, really. If you have a group of players who are a blast to game with, the experience is a complete blast and easily beats all the others. If there is but one player who is not quite able to work completely well with the party, it tends to bring everything down. (just ask JediGandalf about a particular Paladin...)
Biggest problem that I see here, aside from a problem player, is finding the right group to game with, and the usual scheduling.
Other
I'm sure you folks can think up something that I missed here. A game with a pre-generated party, but computer-controlled party members, a game where the entire game is controlled by the computer, that sorta thing.
So, your thoughts?
The answer is maybe.
