Syndrome
I can't think of another amusing Story of WTF advertisement, so I'll just say this. PLAY IT NOW! You may need to lower security settings or use Firefox. Or Opera. Just not IE.
Today's update :
"The FPSRPGRTS"
"The FPSRPGRTS"
This stands for the "First-person Shooter - Role-playing Game Rapid Transition Syndrome." So for today we have a brief return to the annals of gaming to discuss a problem I have encountered.
As many of you will know, I primarily play First Person Shooters. I personally believe that they require the most skill, because things happen quickly and you don't have much time to think about what's going on. Second in the skill chart are strategy games, because - as the name slyly suggests - those require strategy. RPGs I consider to be generally easy, because you just need to level a bit to kill stronger things. The most extreme examples are the Final Fantasy games where you have all the time you want to decide how to attack. In FF X online, your character even fights automatically. You just pick extra things for him to do.
Recently, I bought Oblivion in the same day I spent £110 on various games, new and retro.
Now, I have played very, very few RPGs. I guess you could count GoldenAxe on the C64 as one, but other than that and the occassional Zelda game, my RPG experience lacks. This is for one simple reason : For RPGs to be rewarding, you have to put in a lot of effort. That's fine, it makes the game last longer. But there must be a worthwhile reward at the end.
Basically, if :
Time + Effort > Potential fun with all stats maxed out
Then I do not get an RPG. World of Warcraft might be an exception, but at £10 a month - are you all insane?
Then along came Oblivion. I decided this was huge enough and with enough potential fun to warrant me buying it. That and every review said they'd wet themselves repeatedly while playing it or sold everything they owned to buy the expansions. Basically - everyone said it rocked.
Having now played Oblivion for many hours, I understand everything going on. However, when I begun, I was completely overwhelmed. So many different kinds of skills, spells, weapons, items, and the strangest levelling system I've ever encountered meant that it was scary. I expect RPG veterans would have been less overwhelmed, but for an aficianado of the FPS, it was scary. The most complex stats I've ever had to deal with were "Axe Power" and "Health" for the GoldenAxe dwarf, or "Muscle" for San Andreas. Advanced stuff.
So that's the problem. Anyone moving from the FPS Heartland into the dark and dangerous realms of Roleplaying is going to be scared. The fact is all FPS games have the same controls, whereas all RPGs will have their own subtle nuanaces. Find an RPG you like and stick to it. I recommend Oblivion.So for now I'm going to play Oblivion because I understand it, but quietly wait until Episode 2 of Half-life 2 is out. Those mini-Striders look cool.
posted by Mkzrj at 3:02 pm
15 Comments:
Well, wouldn't you know. I've just got into Dungeons and Dragons online (another MMORPG) with a 7 day fre trial. They're spawning capn'!
RPGs rock. And that's both definitions.
I used to be more of an fps fan but many rpg games have convinced to me to use them! The mathematic beauty, and character depth, in most rpgs is good. Even better extended online ;)
Try Dofus everyone! http://dofus.com
RPGs suck.
That is all I have to say on this matter.
Glad no-one noticed that huge, collosal HTML fuck-up I just made & corrected using my amazing skills.
I told you about that! You almost didn't notice! I have the MSN records to prove it!
I think you're talking about the italics. I did something far, far worse :)
Like when all the text went huge size?
FF XI online takes skill... oh yeh it does, it also took nearly 2 years of my life - well 2400 hours of gaming time, for me to realise that it was a HUGE waste of my time.
I Guess killing virtual bunnies with 6 other like minded people that spend 6+ hours everyday on the game like me finally got to me...
I still have many good memories, made many friends but oh boy... the time... i wish I could get it back :(
FPS FTW!
Yay for Gamers Anonymous. Just, with names.
I suffer from this syndrome too. When I first played Fable, and then Oblivion, I was overwhelmed. In Oblivion, it was by the bewildering amount of stats being thrown at me. WHAT AM I MEANT TO DO! That area effects those skills, which are in turn taken up by those major skills, which are effected by the original class chosen and ultimately how much you can train like skills before you gather enough experience to advance to the next level. I mean, wtf. Too much to process. I spent 8 hours picking my character. EIGHT HOURS! Simply because I couldn't pick my way through the information.
Another point - linear/ open gaming. As an fps kinda guy, I am use to linear gaming. I'm going from A -> B, and I'm blowing the crap out of everything that tries to stop me. If it moves, I grab a shotgun and shoot it till it doesn't. And then I continue down the invariable enclosed space, possible a street, or a sewer, or maybe an office block, but almost always one of the three, towards my objective. Occassionally I have to make a decision about my route, but nothing too big, nothing too overwhelming.
And then comes the RPG. It's open. It's confusing. It's got too many options. I have 20 active quests at the moment on Oblivion, more than I've completed so far. I could raise any one of 21 skills, commanding 7 major skills, all of which I need. But I'm going to have to choose a few as priority. Do I kill him? Do I try to maintain my fame, or relinquish it and let my infamy grow instead. Thief, Fighter, Mage, Assassin? Too many options, too much choice.
I MISS LINEAR GAMING!
No, not the huge text :)
The worst kind of game is possibly those which try to strike a balance. Like in the Metroid Prime games, you are made to explore because there are many routes but only one will be even vaguely worthwhile and the game is infact linear, it's just very hard to work out what to do. How annoying.
RPGs = good.
Fable = TEH SUCK! WORST GAME EVER!
Come on - Mr "I'm a Paedo" Owen completed it - reason enough to avoid, me thinks.
Fable is a great game. It's without a shadow of doubt overrated, but its still worthy of playing. Particularly as your first real rpg, as it was for me, since its alot more simple than some of the more confusing monstrosities.
Also, I do know what the collosal html fuck up was, but I'm just going to sit here smug in that knowledge.
One final point about the Metroid Prime games - they should have used an established control system. You said in your entry that all fps's use the same controls, but Metroid is a Prime (pun intended, kill me later) example of a game that became a lot harder to cope with because it changed it. FPS controls are univeral, and changing them risks alienation. As has happened to me. Since I stopped playing for a while at a reasonably hard point, its now nigh on impossible for me to get any further, because I dont have enough time to get back used to the control again. How irritating. Metroid Prime should use the standard dual analog stick system.
That is true. The one-stick movement of Metroid is scary and disturbing. You should always either use dual analog sticks on a console game or use the mouse and the WASD keys on a computer.
But then, Metroid tried to make up for the problem by having the targeting thing where you could lock onto objects and use that as an axis to rotate around.
Sounds odd, and it is.
Not a fan of mouse control in FPSes.
Nor WASD - I prefer JKLI.
It's nice to have a choice.
Playing Quake II at school today was terrible.
That is just plain fucked up. WASD i is clearly better. IJKL or whatever is just daft, I mean... but- wha? And not a fan of mouse control? Its by far the most accurate and responsive control medium available to us at the moment, with the exception of the monitoring of eye movement which is still in testing.
Post a Comment
<< Home