Wasteland 2 Drive passes $2.1 million

[paultakeda]

I'm not talking about personalities and "narrative fluff", I'm telling you that the difference is one has a main character essential to the game and the other does not. Party dynamics has nothing to do with it.

Moreover, the terminology is not mine or krellen's. Argue all you want, but that's the definition.

Party dynamics has everything to do with it! That's how you play the game! That's what matters in a game.
Not who the game's story tells you that you are.

Okay, we'll go with that. When you have NPCs in your party they have personalities and "narrative fluff". You don't create them, you don't role play them. You role play a character. This is distinct from a party-based RPG where you role play the core party. That's how you play the game.

Better?

[Infinitron]

Okay, we'll go with that. When you have NPCs in your party they have personalities and "narrative fluff". You don't create them, you don't role play them. You role play a character. This is distinct from a party-based RPG where you role play the core party. That's how you play the game.

Better?

Sure thing. I've said earlier in this thread that I consider a game where you create the entire party at chargen to be more pure, from a roleplaying perspective. And I definitely wouldn't want Wasteland 2 to be any other way.

Neverthless, if you're playing an entire game with a party, whose actions you more-or-less fully control - to call that game a "single character, non-party-based game", just because you didn't have all those party members from the first minute...sorry, but it borders on the absurd.

[paultakeda]

Okay, we'll go with that. When you have NPCs in your party they have personalities and "narrative fluff". You don't create them, you don't role play them. You role play a character. This is distinct from a party-based RPG where you role play the core party. That's how you play the game.

Better?

Sure thing. I've said earlier in this thread that I consider a game where you create an entire party in chargen to be more pure, from a roleplaying perspective.
Neverthless, if you're playing an entire game with a party, whose actions you more-or-less fully control - to call that game a "single character, non-party-based game"...sorry, but it borders on the absurd.

This is where definitions require common ground. Party-based uses "based" to represent that the party is essential to the game so no one character is special. Baldur's Gate fails this definition because there is one character that is special, making it a "main character" RPG, which would therefore be "solo-based". Neither definition describes party control, party size or even if there is a party (that would just be a solo RPG).

[Infinitron]

"Essential" is too subjective a term. The party was essential to Ultima IV - you could not enter the Codex Chamber and finish the game without them. But the Avatar was still the main PC, and the game started with only him.
Nor can you survive long in Baldur's Gate without a party, not without some seriously cheesy metagaming.

Just expand the term and say 'NPC party-based' or 'player generated party-based'. Clear and simple.

[paultakeda]

"Essential" is too subjective a term. The party was essential to Ultima IV - you could not enter the Codex Chamber and finish the game without them. But the Avatar was still the main PC, and the game started with only him.
Nor can you survive long in Baldur's Gate without a party, not without some seriously cheesy metagaming.

Just expand the term and say 'NPC party-based' or 'player generated party-based'. Clear and simple.

I'm find with the expansion of the term, but even in Ultima IV, you can't finish the game if the Avatar is dead.

[Vryheid]

Legend of Grimrock is a perfect example of a recent party based RPG. You create a group of characters at the very start of the game, no one character is essential to the plot, and the game will continue no matter which individual character is incapacitated. If some people seriously can't differentiate between this and games like Fallout or Baldur's Gate, they probably shouldn't be bothering to argue semantics.

[ffordesoon]

Every time I see - or, indeed, get into - a discussion of RPG terminology, I'm always puzzled by just how heated such discussions get. It puts me in mind of two librarians getting into a screaming argument over whether or not a book is nonfiction. I understand the need for classification, and I understand liking a certain type of game more than others, or only liking a certain type of game, but the idea of not enjoying a game simply because the game doesn't easily slot into a given classification is utterly alien to me. Of course, I imagine a lot of that has to do with my belief that a game's quality matters far more than its genre.

But still, it seems to me that you either admit a genre-straddling game has defeated your classification system and then expand your definition of a certain genre to include the game, or you make up a new genre and add that to the list. And then you move on. To go off-topic for a second, this is what puzzles me about the Mass Effect debate: maybe it says more about the internet haunts I frequent than it does about the discussion at large. but I've seen far more arguments over whether or not the Mass Effect games are RPGs (or action-RPGs, a genre that seems to have mysteriously vanished from people's vocabularies once Mass Effect came out) than I've seen discussions of its merits as a game. And yet, at bottom, the discussions are about its merits as a game, because the sides always seem to come down to "It's not an RPG, therefore it's shit" and "It's an RPG, so it's not shit".

And that's so puzzling to me, because I know of many shit RPGs and many great games that aren't RPGs in the slightest. I don't have a problem with calling Half-Life 2 "not an RPG", because it's not. Still a fucking incredible game - not an RPG. Whereas I think anyone would agree that, say, Ultima IX is an RPG, but that doesn't mean it's not utter shit.

I'm not necessarily intending to foster a discussion of Mass Effect or whatever with this post; it's more just some thoughts that the little tiff over the term "party-based" inspired in me. Carry on.

[krellen]

Yeah, I agree that "game I like" = "genre I like" is a sort of silly distinction. I do try to avoid making that argument; I fully admit to liking all sorts of games, though I do have preferences, and certain genres have tendencies to fit those preferences better, but that doesn't mean I won't like a game just because it's not in a genre I generally love (or hate it because it's in a genre I generally loathe.)

But hey, I'm probably a "casual gamer", since if forced to pick only one game to ever be able to play again, I'd probably pick Tetris.

[Drool]

I can't help but wonder if the Double Fine board has this sort of thing going on over the definition of "point and click adventure". I mean, "party-based" has a pretty distinct definition, just like "point-and-click adventure" and "side-scrolling platformer" and "shoot 'em up" do.

[paultakeda]

I can't help but wonder if the Double Fine board has this sort of thing going on over the definition of "point and click adventure". I mean, "party-based" has a pretty distinct definition, just like "point-and-click adventure" and "side-scrolling platformer" and "shoot 'em up" do.

I'm on that backer-only board. The answer is no. In fact, it's a huge slap-on-the-back-fest, talking about what one random item that has no use whatsoever ought to be in the game (winner is rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle), what were the best adventure games in the last ten years (and therefore obscure), and all sorts of crazy off the wall ideas for what sort of adventure it ought to be.

Then again, you have to keep in mind that all they've got on the table is "point and click adventure"; nowhere near as specific as "Wasteland 2".

But yeah, no one's disputing what P&C means.

[Jotun]

What do you call a game like Baldur's Gate, then?

Some folks have taken to calling that style the "Chosen One" style. It's a single-character style. You're playing a character, not a party - so I guess "character-based" would be a fair moniker?

Pfff ! That's cerebral masturbation !
Then Icewind Dale is party based but not BG... But the combats are EXACTLY the same ! The fact is, what you call party-based RPGs are just more focused on fights and less on story telling... which is a hassle IMO.

Icewind Dale doesn't have banter between Minsc and Edwin. It doesn't force my characters to be "sassy" or "stoic" or "barmy". It doesn't create banter between characters on the fly. The PCs are PCs, and the game has no say in how they interact with one another. NPCs that join the party can have these features - and that's what you get with Baldur's Gate, a party full of NPCs that the game controls and a single PC that you control. Icewind Dale gives me 6 PCs that I control. It's different.

Yup, and that's why IWD is boring and BG great, that's why I finished IWD just twice and spend hundreds of hours during years on BGI & II. IWD is just about fights, BG is about story telling plus the great fights of IWD. Do I say that BG is far superior to IWD ? Yes, indeed.

I think your definition of "party-based" RPG is just old-fashioned guys. Since there is a lot more RPG with just one character nowadays, it seems logical to call "party based" RPGs like Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age where you create one character but have to play a whole group during fights (sometimes I really wonder if any of you ever played RPGs after 2000 ).

[Brother None]

I think your definition of "party-based" RPG is just old-fashioned guys.

You are aware of where you're posting, right?

[krellen]

The fact is, what you call party-based RPGs are just more focused on fights and less on story telling... which is a hassle IMO.

Give Storm of Zehir a try. If you can get past the horrible, horrible camera, you'll see there's a lot more to it than fights.

[Infinitron]

If Baldur's Gate was better than Icewind Dale, it was because it had more interesting areas, quests and encounters, not because of chatty NPCs.

[Jotun]

I think your definition of "party-based" RPG is just old-fashioned guys.

You are aware of where you're posting, right?

Yup, and don't get me wrong, my favorite RPGs are late 90's, BUT I think there is also some pretty cool RPG out there since few years (... well, maybe just one : The Witcher... and The Witcher 2) and that we should take in account the changes in RPG games since every people here are not old-school RPG players (since I'm born in 1988 I obviously didn't play the first WL).

Sometimes I also have the feeling that some people here doesn't see BG, Fallout or Planescape as "old-school" RPGs.

[krellen]

Sometimes I also have the feeling that some people here doesn't see BG, Fallout or Planescape as "old-school" RPGs.

I don't.

I was already out of college when all of those games were released. Those are games of my adulthood, not my childhood. Those are games of a design type different from the games of my childhood. They are not "old school". Hell, most of them haven't even gotten out of high school yet.

[Jotun]

Well, TODAY, those RPGs are old-school. Mass Effect is considered as a RPG (even if you don't like it), The Witcher or Deus Ex as well. So in comparison, Black Isle & Interplay RPGs are old-school.
You cannot define "old-school" based on individual experience, but on comparing what's existing now and what was made years (decades) ago. The point of reference is not the "you", but the "now".

[paultakeda]

Pfff ! That's cerebral masturbation !
Then Icewind Dale is party based but not BG... But the combats are EXACTLY the same ! The fact is, what you call party-based RPGs are just more focused on fights and less on story telling... which is a hassle IMO.

You are defining the term on only one feature of the game: combat. RPGs are not combat sims. As for saying party-based RPGs focus more on fights, that's on the game design. IWD is criticized and/or lauded for being a hack and slash RPG, but it being so has nothing to do with it being party-based.

[krellen]

Mass Effect is considered as a RPG

Only because people have bought into the lie that an RPG is a game with a "story" and "choices". Any game can have a story and choices - more should that don't, in fact, though not every game needs story and choices. Not every RPG needs story and choices. RPGs are games where you play a character, and that character's ability dictate your game play. I keep pretty firm and clear definitions of things - 14 years is not old enough to be "old school". Give it another ten.

[Jotun]

RPGs are games where you play a character, and that character's ability dictate your game play.

Ok, so Darksiders or Soul Reaver are RPGs since I play a character with different abilities and I can choose the way I play it.

Yes you play a character (and sometimes you cannot choose it like in The Witcher), but the story and choices are essential. As a gamemaster (maybe you are mastering tabletop RPG as well) I can assure you that you NEED a story and it's better if there is choices (and usally, even if you don't plan any choices, players will make some anyway). Plus some set of rules are not based on leveling at all.