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Guild Wars 2: The RPG Element
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In many ways, it's sometimes easy to remember that the games we love are actually supposed to have a role-playing component in them. In today's Guild Wars 2 column, we discuss how critical it will be for Arena.Net to nail the RPG in their MMO. See what you think and then discuss the column in the comments.
Guild Wars 2 needs to really nail the RPG part of the equation. Let me paint you a picture in words: As I walked through the busy market, I heard a whispering directed towards me. I began to turn around looking in all directions, trying to see the source through the sea of citizens and merchants. Upon hearing it again, I could see its source, an old man wearing a ragged old cloak hiding behind a merchant’s buggy. As I approached him, he looked up at me and I could see the fear in his eyes. His pale face, now covered in sweat looked around quickly, and soon he thrust an object with his skeleton like hands to my chest. “Take it!” Said the worried man, “Take this wretched thing away from me! I don’t want the images in my head, take them out! Take them out!”
Read more of David North's Guild Wars 2: The RPG Element.
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"There better be a good reason the farmer wants me to kill 10 of these guys."
Comments
The same thing has been done before. The only game that has done RPG appreciably well is SWTOR and that just came out.
Sorry, I just don't believe this game will be that different from any other MMO out there, especially given that its Guild Wars. GW isn't exactly known for being a rich RPG element, and we have been repeatedly lied to by devs and game companies about MMO's for years.
hopefully it's better than this shit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHPDjIvMsTo
Man, what are you talking about? That is the epitome of RPG gaming. Watching a movie, but with a choose the next scene button.
BOOYAKA!
It sort of sucks the magic out of it when your the one millionth person to take this talisman to the arcane artificat specialist, Jus sayin'
LMAO... I found that more funny than I should. Well the good thing about the GW2 conversation cinematics is that ArenaNet would have make a concious effort to have it glitch up like that. XD
You're kidding right? SWTOR just offers you different scenes within a main story, that's not RPG. Just hit eescape and do almost any conversation over, you may get a different reaction to your response but the next scene is always identical with the same choices. When you can actually change the shape of a place then it's different. SWTOR employs nothing more than a bunch of smoke and mirrors and people have eaten it up.
Definitely not like you, I don't read quest text for anything that isn't the main quest, which is why I'm looking forward to GW2. It will be FAR more interesting to be swimming underwater exploring and just 'happen' across some event in progress than it would be to go to an NPC with a '!' over their head asking me to kill 10 fish. Fish that are a danger to the town! Even though they're sitting in one spot not actually doing anything.
No, I'm okay with never experiencing that again.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
quests are not a must have in a RPG. sometimes these highly linear quests even destroy the RPG. heck the best RPGs got no quests at all, imho.
i hope, that aside from this personal questline there are just dynamic events. there are other ways to tell people, whats going on in the world. i dont need questtexts with nostly stupid tasks telling everybody, that they are the one and only great hero. which is nonsens, obviously.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
SWTOR has not much to do with RPG, which means developing and playing a role!
in SWTOR you follow a storybook, playing a role (an other predefined person) like an actor. Bioware says, that this is RPG. i say, they are wrong. lets call it an interactive movie. it is just that, not more.
this may be interesting and fun, but it is not RPG.
by replacing quests by dynamic events in a theme-park, GW2 has the chance to get rid of this unholy linearity and bring the RPG back to the theme-park. not as good as a sandbox-based approach could do, but it is a step into the right direction.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
The only true RPG exp is tabletop pen and paper, if they can recreate that then it's all win for me.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Underlined the part I disagree with.
Honestly, I challenge anyone to play the original GW1, and then play another MMO of that period, and still claim with a straight face that GW1 did not have a "rich RPG envrionment". It had limitations, yes, but those were constraints of the technology available to the developers at the time, not their imaginations.
The story and lore of the GW world is some of the richest that I have seen, and the first game reflects that, with its missions and with quests that tell the stories, both independent and interlinked, of the people of the world. How exactly does it fall short in your opinion?
Reality Bites. I'm only Barking
What makes me smile most is knowing that the situation is really happening even in gameplay.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
I always found the story in GW exciting. Maybe not in factions, but that's only because of Master Togo's annoying voice. I'm sure they'll do a great job of it in GW2.
People saying Gw2 isn't going to different, then you aint done your research on this game. Its got much big innovation in also most every part of the game from PVP to dungeons, loot, Events, parying, and acutally having fun in an MMO again. You people really need to do research before you say things
sorry bro, but i totally disagree with you on this one. I can't speak with experience for the original, but during my time with Everquest 2 i saw some of the most devoted, zany, out of their minds, wacked out, crazy, loopy, insane, nutty roleplay fanatics than alll my experiences in all other mmo's combined. YES, even more than people in stormwind running off to elwynne forest to go ERP with fellow males pretending to be female NElfs or what-have-you.
You had player written books that ran the gauntlet from incomprehensible dribble to full on NC-17 erotica featuring ratongas and iksar. You had guilds with leaders who had multiple personality disorders that lead them to create so many alts over so many accounts that literally half the guild was one person pretending to be over 40 different people, some logging on at the same time and playing together using scripts so it took me a couple weeks to realize it was all the same person.... (i got out of there quickly there-after) to guilds devoted entirely around the idea of you paying in game platinum for them to role a toon of your exact specifications to come and be your "escort" for a predetermined set of itme. You had tier 3 guild halls that hired people using RMT to decorate the place making it into the some of the coolest settings you'd ever explore within the entire game world.
You could meet people out in the middle of questing or exploring or traveling from one destination to the next for any reason under the sun and chance RP with them, turning a seemingly mundane trip from point A to B into an epic encounter that would blossom into a friendship where you'd meet many times more down the road.
The ONLY game my foot. You must be as blind as you are a ninny. pardon my french.
The people who believe this just aren't paying attention. Five minutes watching solo storyline questing will disprove that SWTOR is the only one with VO's and five minutes watching any of the other combat movies will show that you don't have to talk to anyone you just have to step into an area, the npc's tell you what to do just by being there.
SWTOR didn't do questing all that well just try to drop a quest, go to another zone and pick up quests for your level or skip quests altogether just to go do something else entirely. Not gonna happen sorry. They lead you by the nose literally from one part to the next. no freedom = no fun.
HAHA I enjoyed that too much! Love it. it's the best right the most innovative vo tech out there? spsssh
Don't hold your breath. GW1 works in exactly the same way as SWTOR, by following a main storyline with a few side quests, and GW2 is shaping up to be more of the same.
RPG: I feel it's one of the BIG benchmarks for how GW2 will be measured to be successful or not to be... agreed.
Sorta reminds me for some reason of those old myths and legends from the Greeks, and I'm stealing a march on myself here, those stories about how the Gods granted humans mortality... if you look at the Critical Injury Tables in RPG rulebooks, some of the (rolling doubles? Higher numbers?) and the GRAPHIC desciptions as your body is ripped an arm off or eventually: "It's time to retire this hero/death is instantaneous" I think partly the GMs ability to pace the story, surprise you and flexibility in what quests/adventures you undertake and the chance your char will die all contribute to the RPG. I think if you dream big, you may fall hard is a part of the RPG equation as much as becoming truly world-saving for the Nth time this month... : ) More NPCs in mmos should be out to trick you, not be trustworth/face-value/lead you astray etc... "ffs, that c*nt got my char killed!" ; )
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
SWTOR is without a doubt an RPG. The fact that you can make some decisions, even if they are small decisions, in the storyline classifies it as one. The ending may be the same for for each bounty hunter, but having a separate ending to the main story is not a requirement for an RPG. The meat of an RPG is simply acting out a character in a fictional world. You might feel that it's not as free form in the decisions you can make while acting that character, but it's still an RPG.
I don't get it though. The fact that you can kill some NPCs in the main story, spare their lives, make them enemies, or friends, or more would seem like obvious RPG classification. Yes the final ending is going to be the same but that's not a requirement for all RPGs.
I'm hoping GW2 goes all out and really puts the shine on the RPG element. I don't really think one game has to be better than the other. They can simply do things differently. I like both Minecraft and Skyrim, both have sandbox and rpg elements. But one doesn't have to be better than the other.
I disagree. Coming off of SWTOR, their major problem is the major problem in general. I don't care about small quests. When i am playing dnd with my friends, i don't make up quests that have the party fetching a cat and tractor parts. I have them rescuing towns, saving lives, recovering ancient artifcats.
90 percent of mmos are crappy quest. I don't mind getting experience and gold by helping thehunter collect wolf pelts, but its not a quest, and shouldn't be neccessary to leveling. SWTORs insisentce on spending 5 minutes on every quest lost me. I loved the videos, when they deal with my actual story (and aren't just side missions of my actual story to say "hey you're doing your story on this planet).
As for what is an RPG. Multiple endings dont make an RPG. I love them but that doesnt. I define an RPG by looking t the first tabletop RPGs and taking those elments.
Group dynamic is key, the group should be the focus of the game. -
The Game should allow me broad customization on the characters I play
The game should have an engaging story with engaging characters I can care for.
The game should allow me to flourish with non-combat (not crafting) skills and abilities.
SWTOR has the story thing down packed, however, it fails at the group thing and, like other mMO the other things. Rift has great group dynamics, but i can't tell you for the life of me what the story is. It kinda trailed off after MEridian. IF Rift had 'rift events' that got worse or better or branched off, it would be a decent game.
At least GW2 attempts to give you a backstory and builds upon it during an optional addition to the game. SWTOR has got to disappoint fans of old school RPGs. Seriously, dark side/light side points notwithstanding, you are playing the role that someone else wrote the whole way through. Games will always be more limited than what we can imagine for ourselves, but SWTOR was definitely not a leap in the field of RPGs, just presentation of story, there's a difference. It's still a story written for you, not by you.
I think that the next inovative level of an RPG would be where the players can assume the roles usually reserved for NPC's. Join up with friends, overthrough a king, take the kingship, or build a large tower where you live and study magic, only to be thrown out by a barbarian that was paid to kill you. You die, that's it, you have to start over. Learn a secret spell to transfer your spirit into a dragon's egg, after finding enough people that could kill a dragon for its eggs, then grow up, and try to survive, and if you make it, find a inpassable mountain where you hord your gold and treasures, only to be taken on by a kingdom or guild that wishes to end your reign of terror. Things like that, where the world is shaped by the actions of the players, where you don't just go and and discover some dark secret and kill some lost god that has been killed five hundred times that day. That would be my idea of a true RPG, though the technology to sustain something like that probably isn't there.