A Thought

I have been ranting again, full of prejudice :

What ... does not surprise me ... in this discussion about chain end rewards is that people are exclusively talking about one thing :

Loot.

This implies to me, that greed and selfishness are the most driving factors in people discussing quests - they want loot, not story.

This also implies that Blizzard has fully transformed the whole RPG genre - and MMORPGs as well - into loot games. The impact is 7 was so overwhelming that another form of role-playing games simply do not exist anymore. It's as if fast food had become the norm in restaurants, not French Cuisine.

I don't know whether this is even a cultural phenomenon. I had once heard that the "I want everything and I want it now" is a typical American thing. Hence loot-games : Fastest delivery of something materialistic.

Which might be why Blizzard had so much success. And sold the games they had success with based on cultural phenomenons overseas as wel, thus imposing to everyone that "this is the norm". We are used to internalize this "I want everything and i want it now" thing these days - even if it might originally have come from a different culture - and even although the own inherent, native, autochtone culture says something very different.

But - we have no chance to ward that off or to escape from it : The most successful thing overwrites our own cultural beliefs towards materialistic rewards.



My "inner cynic" says to me that people really don't want to discuss the psychological effects of quest rewards - rewarding that you have actually fulfilled a quest. And your character has survived.


Simple reward lists - like they are all give as reward by the quest-givers - simply do not "sound" as a display of acknowledgement that a player has actually managed to survive a given quest.

Simple reward lists just do not give the same psychological "rewarding" effect like chain end rewards do. Those who don't feel it are either too much hardened now, not sensitive enough, or too greedy.

The reward of having a feast at the very end of having built a house - together with everyone who was helping building it - is so much different than giving a milestone reward of having completed a given part of that house.

There just is a difference between milestones and completion.


Reward lists at the end of quests are milestones.

The chain end reward, however, that would be a feast : A special special reward. A reward so good that it would show that "it was worth it, playing through the whole quest chain".

This feeling, this emotional impact of relief - that "it's over now, we've suceeded !" is not sought by those who want everything, and they want it now.

This might even be a different cultural approach to end rewards - I don't know. I really can't say. What's striking me, however, is the strong difference between

- milestone rewards
- chain end rewards.

Someone who want fast results - and the emphasis is on "fast" ! - does not want any slow approach.

It might even be a thing of Extroverts (fast, strong emotions) vs. Introverts (slow, flower-sniffing), I guess.
If it is true that the U.S. is a rather extrovert oriented society, then : It's a cultural thing again, because there are other cultures which are more introvert oriented.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
If you haven't played Outer Wilds yet, you need to. Bad. No shooting (except to shoot a camera out). Loot? No way. Even if you grab something, you can't keep it for more than about 20 minutes. Also: banjo music and marshmallows over a fire.
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
8,238
Location
Kansas City
I just read its Wikipedia entry. Interesting concept.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
Sometimes, I just wonder.

There happened something odd at Ubisoft, but I really can't say they tried to do a BS ( Joxer will, of course, I suspect ) :

REFERENZ-ID 000056691

Watch Dogs 2 Giveaway E-Mail



Wenn ihr euch für Watch Dogs 2 auf der Ubisoft Forward registriert habt und aus Deutschland seid, habt ihr vielleicht eine E-Mail erhalten, die besagt, dass ihr Child of Light anstatt Watch Dogs 2 erhaltet.

Dies gilt nur für Spieler, die unter 18 Jahre alt sind. Jeder über 18 Jahren bekommt dennoch Watch Dogs 2.

Wir entschuldigen uns für die Unannehmlichkeiten.

Translation (not literally, my words) : "Those who have registered for Watch Dogs 2 on Ubi Forward and were from Germany, will receive an E-Mail which says that they will receive Child Of Light instead of Watch Dogs 2.

This is only happening with players who are under 18 years old. Everyone over 18 years gets their Watch Dogs 2.

We apologise for these inconveniences."

Well, 18 years is an important age in jurisdiction. At this age, people get their full adult rights, so to say. With age 18 they are allowed to drive cars, participate in elections and anything else that adults can do, like buying porn or buying games labelled as "only age 18+" because of their brutality.

This also means that everyone under that age is getting some kind of protection from the government, protection against drugs, brutality, porn, and games only for adults.

Apparingly Ubi Soft tried that as well. Giving everyone under 18 Child Of Light instead of the adult game of Watch Dogs.

But I'm shure that 10 year old kids will just find ways not to put into their age into the registry, so that they can play most brutal games even at the age of 10.

There is a thing that makes Germans wonder for decades now That even the most brutal games and movies are freely available in the U.S. , but anything with sexuality gets the immediate ban hammer.
In Germany, it is vice versa.

These things are eroding within the last decades ( I have always held the opinion that this is because of the influence of U.S. games and movies, which have so much more brutality - which implies that this is some kind of cultural imperialism - making other countries accept what is normal in the U.S. and on the other hand make countries going against what is not accepted in the U.S. ) - especially with the Gangsta Rap - infused "Deutschrap", which is abount nothing but Macho, fast cars, brutality, racism and seeing women as objects of sexuality. Newspaper articles point out that porn is easy to access via smartphones, which greatly upsets German people. On the other hand, there have been found perverse rings of child abusers in the recent months.

Deutschrap is basically an outlet of German Macho Culture and of German Bro Culture.

Yet although these things are currently being destroyed, authorities still try to maintain at least some degrees of protection of children against brutality in the media, especially in games. Which is of course scorned at because some people believe that even the most brutal games should be available uncensored to gamers of all ages.

In a way, it's almost laughable, or, as some would say, "cute", how Ubisoft tries to maintain this kind of protection. Hence these news I quoted above.
Surely Ubisoft will receive a gamer's shitstorm for that.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
I was ranting again. MOst of that has already been repeated by me numerous times.
This rant is DDO - specific in some places, but there's also the - already known - wider background theory from me in there :

Hello,

as a story player, I immediately notice "quirks" regarding dialogs.

Sometimes, there's some kind of "hole" (maybe plot hole", sometimes, it's just some kind of un-responsiveness.

The other day I was doing the "Oath Of Vengeance" quest in Raveloft.

I was finding out that there was a room filled like with a small council. I talked to the NPCs. I was directed to the commander of the inhabitants.

After placing the skull into the Mausoleum, the voice can be heard that "the oath is lifted" or "unbound" or something in this meaning..

After that, I was eager to talk to the council, eager to learn what they would do now, since the oath was lifted.

But ... the council gave me the same replies.
And that even although I fully expected the voice to be heard by *everyone* within this castle.

This is a kind of "hole" or "unresponsiveness" I meant above. I do realize that micromanagement of so many dialogs is a big thing, and consumes a *lot* of workload,
but on the other hand, immersion is not only created by the looks of a game.

Of course, most quests are zerged through by the majority - as it is a habit in ALL MMOs - which means that people don't really see and thus don't really acknowledge the sheer amount of work that has been going into building a quest - or a world - an expansion - in this case.
I often write that from a cynical point of view . Zergers don't need ANYTHING, but a longish tunnel made of concrete, and a chest of that tunnel. No dialogs, no graphics, no colours needed at all, only xp & loot.

I DO know that the story players are a dying race since Blizzard invented the Action-RPG. Or have always been from the start.

My background as a player comes from the now died-out Adventure Games genre - a genre that had its high time in the 90s, with Sierra and LucasArts at the top, I think.
It has died out, and ... I don't really want to muse about why. It would lead too far into rants & ramblings.
Fact is, that it has died out, and that everyone is playing for p & loot these days ... - no mattzer, which game. Even in single player RPGs, I suspect.

To me, role-playing was nothing but an expansion of playing a story in an adventure game. To me, RPgs WERE in fact Adventure Games ! They only had a few mechanics added, like levelling up, and the use of items for survival/b] (the old Realms Of Arcania games, and the upcoming Realms Of Beyond game). Role-playing games were in fact also ome kind of survival game to me : Your character could die of weather (light clothing in winter !), illnesses (and having no cure for that !) or of enemies (like Orcs, for example).

Besides, this would make up an interesting mechanic : Items protecting the wearer from weather effects, like lightning striking during a storm, or mists (Ravenloft !), or sun beams (desert ! Light beams can already kill !) or clouds made up from swamp gas (like the spell "Stinking Cloud" !). They could act as DOTs.

Immersion is essential for story players. The more immersive a game is, the better the "head cinema" is, the better the game stays in/as good memories.

Me, personally, I can have a great time because of reading novels. My "head cinema" kicks in with full force, then.

Maybe, and that's one of my theories, this is a definitive plus Introverts have.

Introverts are often considered as strange und weird, because they are not so much understandable by extroverts. And extroversion is seemingly the standard in the U.S. and in many other countries.
Thus, games are built for Extroverts.

And, as a result of this shunning of Introverts, the Adventure genre has fully died out.

Extroverts' "loot games" and "kill games" (like Assassin's, Hitman etc.) have become the norm. These have strong visuals, strong impacts, so much stronger, because Extroverts draw their energy and everything from the outside of them, they need strong emotional incubators (through graphics) because of that. That's why, my theory goes, there are often games with excessive graphics of violence. Extroverts would not be touched like subtle things. Not by small things.

Introverts, and also HSPs, absolutely LOVE these small little details !
And they are also the types of players who notice things like that small Ravenloft quest problem I mentioned above.

Introverts really don't need excessive graphics. They don't need ecessive violence. Introverts don't need strong emotion incubators at all. Quite the contrary.
Sometimes, that excessive that Extroverts need is far too much for introverts.

But, since the "gaming industry" is developing solely for Extroverts - apart from the Indies, maybe, no-one notices that there are DIFFERENT kinds of players.
No-one in "the industry" notices the difference between the kinds of players. And since Extroverts are SO MUCH LOUDER than Introverts, they alw<ays get the kids of games they want.
I even suspect that Extroverts heads of gaming companies (like Mr. Kotick) decide to only develop games that would please THEM. Fully assuming that the players are much like the company's boss.

Personally - and yes, I'm so totally selfish ;D - I want more games for Introverts. I'm so much fed up with what's going on in "the gaming industry" these days.

That's why I love DDO : It's one of the most immersive games I've played in the recent years - and it often isn't as grim as so many other games are, which is a plus in my very personal opinion.
I do with there were more games out there that are so much "old school" like DDO.

But because of that, I also notice "quirks" and "holes" much more often. Like NPCs says the same again AFTER the quest has been fulfilled. Or, in the case of the "Oath Of Vengeance", the skull suddenly lying next to the quest giver again, even although
1. according to the quest, it lies within the mausoleaum
2. I am the only inhabitant of the whole Ravenloft world instance.

A great way how it was imho done RIGHT are imho :
1. Snowy + Sunny Korthos
2. The end of the "Phiarlan Carnival" chain, when you just get out of the very last quest into that small plaza, and then visit the Livewood Theatre for the very first time after that !
That was a great experience ! :)

Alrik
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
Two days ago, I bought myself a Lemmings figurine from Gamestop.

When remembering the game, I realized how much different "gaming" was back then.

A game like Lemmings is impossible these days.
I don't think even Indoes would dare to make a game full with cuteness and colourfulness, as both are very much frowned upon by … "gamers".
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
But there are still cute and colourful games in the making. Indie games, but still.
 
Joined
Sep 5, 2016
Messages
77
Sometimes ... I see very subtle ... parallels between SWTOr & DDO ...

Newest example :

SWTOR : Nightlife Event
DDO : Night Revels Event

Both at the same time (right now !) ...
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
2 entirely different things :

1. My musings on the word "gamer", highly personal, of course, just taken from another forum entry by me :

And regarding the word "gamer" ... I personally don't think that Adventure Games players are likely to call themselves "gamers", since the term "gamer" has such a aggressive tone around it, at least that's how I feel it. I rather believe that a shooter/Action-RPG/Battle Kingly/Gangsta Games player would rather call himself or herself a "gamer", because nowadays, the word "gamer" emits something like "power".The feeling I get from today's use of the word "gamer" is rather like "I play for power".


2. An rather unexpected, rather philosophical entry by someone else, totally unexpected. (These days, I don't expected any meta or even philosophical postings on forums anymore.)
It's regarding DDO, but the general topic of it is universally applicable :
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/525699-DDO-or-when-the-solution-becomes-a-problem

It reminds me of a thought pattern found by Archaeologists :

A group of early farmers (thousands of years before now) were clinging to a certain "corridor" of land which they farmed, until the lands got depleted (remember : early farmers).
What the Archaeologists found, was, that this group was clinging to that corridor, even although there was good land not far away as well. But they never moved there.
They stayed there, meanwhile the land they had settled on, was more and more degrading.
(If someone wants, I can provide the article as a source, but i need to find the Archaeology magazine in which it appeared first.)
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
Often, when I was ranting about the violence in games - and especially with PvP in MMORPGs - I received very often the reply :

"But it's only pixels !"

Now, I've recently turned that argument several degrees around :

In an discussion in my - currently - favourite MMORPG about "nerfs" of classes, abilities, items .. - in short : discussion about nerfs of power gaming and min-maxing - I used this argument myself :

Quoting from my memory : "Why are you ranting about nerfs of a few points of power in your min-maxed character builds so much ? It's only pixels, after all !"

I'd never thought that I'd use this same argument myself one day.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
In DDO ( = Dungeons & Dragons Online, although in its Eberron setting its often rather "Sewers & Dragons Online", especially in the starter areas, its later added other settings more have proper Dungeons to it ... ) I learned that there are several kinds of damage on creatures.

- Elemental damage : Electricity, Acid, Cold (but not water, curiously), Fire ...
- Alignment damage : Lawful against chaotic beings, good against evil beings, chaotic against lawful beings, evil against good beings ... Neutral is not affected in any way, it seems to me.

What the developers imho forget are ... what I'd call "emotional damage", so to say :

Love damage against evil creatures, as evil creatures are often filled with hate ... or so I thought. But, I must correct myself insofar, that evil creatures are not necessarily driven by hate. There are enough examples of evil characters driven by something else ... By greed, for example.

So, a newish role-playing system could implement these (and make things thus even more complex) :

Love against hate
Compassion against greed
Naivity against Cynism ...

These are just examples. I have no real outline for that.

The most striking thing is, however, the complete absenxce of love/hate in D&D. Okay, it's meant to be a "war game", initiallly, and in any war, there is no love/hate, no feelings, no emotions - or are at least not supposed to be there.

It's a bit astonishing, that feelings and emotions came into the RPG genre so late. Baldur's Gate "bantering" was a forerunner of all that's there in that direction today.

I can't shake the feeling (hah !) as if this has something to do with "manliness". Men - especially soldiers - are not supposed to show (or have) any emotions, not supposed to express any feelings apart from hunger and thirst.
And D&D is based on tabletop war games.

Love damage against hateful beings ...

... that reminds me of something. In the long lost "Alrik's Point Of View" articles (or how they were called) on the RPGDot, I once wrote that ... there is mostly a fighting "against" something. Like in Blizzard's Action-RPGs.

There is no fighting FOR something. Like in "I'm fighting for my home !". A person could very well decide to defend his or her home against demons, for example.

Meanwhile the actual handling/outcome of the situation would be the same (sword vs. demon, for example),
the difference between both is the inherent psychological motivation.

The difference between both is also the direction of the fighting movement.

"Fighting against" very much feels different to me that "fighting for".
"Against" very much feels different to me than "for".

"Fighting for our lives" means something like "we are defending our lives !".
Whereas "fighting against the demons" feels more like "we are going to drive these demons out or into extinction !"

To round this up, it feels more like "we are defending our home with love for our home and people !"
with the demons saying : "we despise these silly farmers and are going to destroy their homes with our hate !"

So, the farmers should do rather "love damage" against the demons in that example,
meanwhile the demons would do "hate damage" against the farmers.

There is one Elephant standing in the room, though :

this concept could be exploited by fanatic nationalists. They could say "we are fighting with the love of our homes !" - and they might actually indeed love their homes -
- but their intentions would be like - being fanatics, as they are in this example - hate against the outside. Love towards the inside, hate against the outside.

And that would be ... well ... racism, wouldn't it ?
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
A few days ago, I was reading the xth article of a teenager killing another teenager with a knife.

I realized that it is true what a social worker or teacher or both said in an interview in the local newspaper : That the lockdown has making young people miss the learning of how to get through anger and through discussions.

They do not learn to restrain themselves.

Then, I realized, that there is a far bigger and far deeper problem :

Young people do not learn through games how to control their anger and aggression.

I think, that's it. I've often felt that between the lines modern gaming is a great psychological experiment on society, and that there will be some kind of outcome to it.

And I think that this is it. Modern gaming does not teach teenagers how to control their anger and it does not teach teenagers to control their aggression, either.

If you do not believe me, then please show me one bestselling game (especially one from a big publisher) which DOES it.

So, I believe now that the great lockdowns, which made teenangers mostly stay inside and play games, as I suppose, has not given them this important learning lesson. Because within games, all aggression is let out. There is no positive learning effect of NOT acting aggressive.

And that's where I agree with the person from this interview : Young people just do not learn it. They do not learn how to restrain themselves.
And that's why there are so many newspaper reports of teenagers injuring one another with knives, or through beating others, often even in groups.

And that they have never learned to restrain themselves is seen through the fact that many attackers do not even stop when then victim is lying on the ground, and even not when the victim is bleeding !

Where would they have learned to restrain themselves ? Where ?

Games do not teach them that.
Instead, games teach young people to "let the aggression go". Within games, players get a POSITIVE signal for NOT stopping with the killing of any opponent !
Because modern games have built in a "it's me or them who will die" mechanism, which ENCOURAGES the player to NOT stop !

And again : Who teaches young people to stop ?
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
I seriously miss things in games' narratives.

The situation is dire, I think, because what we are currently seeing are - more or less - endless repetitions of the same old formula.

Good vs. evil ,
with a game that's so dark and dirty and full of blood and called "mature" because everyone believes in an exact imaginary formula of what "should" be called that ...

Storytelling in gaming is so much degenerated it isn't even funny anymore. The same old sgooters follow the same old formular, the same old rople-playing games follow the same old formula, everyone wants to be a badass and at the very top of the predator list.

Gaming has degenerated to much into power gaming, loot amassing, looking at dirt, deaths and dreadfulness, that everyone has become an ever repeating cycle of storytelling.

No inventions, people, because that would cost buyers - who [ki]always[/i] buy the same thing - and thereforte money -
money which the shareholders - and the top people in that business are also mostly top sharegholders in that predator list -
clearly want.

Like a watermark , money is defining agaming, money is defining storytelling. There are no unique stories anymore, because everyone knows that they are not bringing money. The wish for money is shaping anything.

When did we have the last time truly stunning story developments that makes us breath in, hold on for a few seconds, and then breath out again ?

LOTR is impossible in gaming, because the toip people will see no money in that.
No, I don't mean that "road movie" part of LOTR (for those who have really read it=, no, I I mean everything else.
Too far, too complicated, too much clean, bloodless and undirty : This wonÄ't sell. People want bloodbaths, bullet time, and dark assassinations ! Or even embellished assassinations !

I really miss principles of storytelling that make writers create *new* stories.

But the players, of course, they won't buy that. They will say "oh, that's interesting, but I prefer to play a gritty badass."

Even in movies, there are narratives that come out again and again and again. LIke "Oh, he's dead. He sacrificed himself for us !" ... "No, he isn't ..."

Or the "Hero's Journey". Seen so often, it has become almost a cliché these days ...

I really long for things like what Tolkien called the "eucatastrophe". Something more spiritual, something more moving, something that doesn't care whether it will be bought or not.

Tgere were games which were unique - and not bought. Because people have a taste that doesn't look for something dspecial, it seems. The ongoing success of WOW is telling. People love to cling to old formulae, because they are so ancient, and that they are always repeating themselves gives them a feeling of safety ... "Nothing changes", one would say ...

But the world changes, whether they want it , or not. And so, we need new stories, not new embellishments. ("Old vine in old new bottles.")

We need something that is combining both, cynically put. We need something that makes people want to listen to stories again !
Not the same old bullets in new games.

Storytelling is currently at its very lowest level. There is nothing new anymore.

And what people do not want at all is what I know as an "happy ending", because people rather want dirt and blood and muted colours, machine gun noise and the corpses of fallen enemies.

We have too many "perpetual war / neverending war" settings right now.

In the end, what we have in this degenerated state of gaming right now which consists of nothing but fighting, battle, combat, war in all of its variations -
- in the end this is like training people into believing that there is nothing but that.

It feels as if someone was training gamers into losing the belief in good feelings.
Training people into hating good things, nice things, beautiful things,
Training people into hating anything that is not dirt, war, fights, blood, adrenaline, money, ugliness.

That hate against everything good has already resulted in degoratory words put against that. The German "Gutmensch" is such a thing : A word badmouthing a person who is trying to help others having a nice life. Current games train the belief that "there can't be nice things".

Nobody wants to be a good person these days in games. INstead, everyone wants to be a fearsome badass. Which includes the word "bad".

Bad is the new good.
It seems.

I think I know now why my own stories differ so much from anything I see on the outside. Nobody will want to publish them, because they are trying to be the opposite of that.

I'm so much bored of today's narratives that I basically have to write my own things if I want to read what I want to read.

I'm so much bored of contemporary gaming these days.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
Try "Heaven's Vault" for a diversion from the type of games you describe...
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
I already have it; it's waiting to be played.

I most certainly should do that during the xmas days, when everything is quiet, silent, and a special feeling is in the air …

I'm actually - to be honest - more that glad that *anyone* had come up with the idea of that game … I mean, life's so full of so many other things than just fighting …
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
It is strange that you think that majority of games are dark - for me it is the opposite - majority of mainstream RPGs have been reworked into bright colours, stupid story, always positive. The only RPG available is JRPG, which I wouldn't say it is dark at all, all the new indies do have bright colours, Pillars was the only game with dark story I know about. And then gothic games like Path of Exile or Diablo. Even Dragon Age franchise was reworked in Dragon Age II from gothic feel into western version of JPRG, or more likely american comics - the main character of old witch does look like … superwoman. Maybe that is why I feel a bit sad if someone does have a problem with those a few dark gothic games, because then I have the feeling they are not allowed to exist.
So what makes you feel/why do you think that all games are dark?
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jun 23, 2021
Messages
173
So what makes you feel/why do you think that all games are dark?

JRPGs are something I very much leave out of my "formula". What I'm in general speaking of are, what I'd call as "western RPGs".

As a recurring style I could use Gothic and its followers. They are all basically the same dark games, including Elex, from what i see through these forums (screenshots, (p)reviews, etc.) and having the same name in the first place : "Gothic", which stands for, well, you know it.

Of course, the press is some kind of filter through which I see everything, so that means that everything must be taken with a grain of salt.

This filter works in either way, for example with the newest "combat trailer" for Elex, just trying to appeal to people who like combat in RPGs in general, and in the Elex series particularly.

This creates some kind of image (through / via the press), too.

For the original Gothic game, I just cannot imagine the developers wearing colourful clothes. The very first Gothic game (which is the only one I played through to a good degree) transports the image as if its developers were like Heavy Metal Bands dressed all in black and having grey-to--black backgrounds for their press photos, like Heavy Metal bands have. I just cannot imagine the devs of Gothic to wear colourful clothes and play games like Candy Crush or The Settlers. I just can't.

Although I have heard about some people who mainly listen to heavy metal, to secretly listen to Enya, too. As their "guilty pleasure".

In the SWTOR PvP forums, for example, there I've heard the remark "if you don't like PvP, then go play Hello Kitty, then", trying to use that as an insult. Like I've written elsewhere : pink is = weak, childish, unmanly.
On the other hand, everything dark = manly.

From this comes the term I developed as some kind of "extension" to the term "dark & gritty", which is often a good term to describe dark games.
I once thought : Hey : The look of these darker games often looks like as if they had been made with having album covers of Heavy Metal albums in mind." From this comes my term "the heavymetalzation of games [and sometimes of media, too]".

Above I wrote that I exclude JRPGs from that, because they are so colourful. I hardly ever play them because of their graphics style, so I cannot say whether they sometimes transport dark themes under a colourful cover or not.

If thre ever was a "western" or "european" style game with having THIS kind of colour palette, then i BET it won't be bought at all. It seems to me that people expect a certain graphics and theme style from "wstern" RPGs nowadays - and that is : Dark & gritty heavy metal games so to say (referring to my terms described above).

There are more than enough games explicitely using dark themes in their titles.
Some are so much over-the-top that they have become unwillingly hilarious in my ears, despite the fact that their developers meant it dead serious with chooing these titles :

"Dark Souls", "God of War", "Dragon Extinction", "God Eater", and all these titles having "war" in their titles.
These are directed at a certain, mostly male, buyer target group. And this target group are very clearly not people who like to play Candy Crush.


There is only 1 game, exactly ONE game in the "western style", which proves that there can be made a good RPG with getting experience (which is the far most importand point in RPGs anyway ! - Apart from combat) to be obtained ALMOST ENTIRELY through social tasts. And this is the "SIM's Medieval", which nobody has ever played here. People, especially male players, seem to keep away from it like it was a very bad illness.

And I have never seen any reviews from major and smaller RPG sites about it. It's been treated like "Hello Kitty" in the example above.

It is not even in the games database in the Watch here, which means that it isn't even considered as an RPG here. Edit : Correction : It is there, filed under the letter "t" : https://www.rpgwatch.com/games/the-sims-medieval-463.html

But I cannot see any previews or reviews by RPG sites about it, which strengthens my impression.

My guess is that this game was created to combine both strong player bases : That of the male RPG player, and that of the female SIMs player. It failed. I can only say that no male player wanted to play it - I deduce that from no-one talking aboit it in the forums here - and my guess is that no-one of the female players wanted to play it, because it was too much like an "traditional" RPG (and too much unlike a SIMs game).
Male players preferred Skyrim to that, and female players rather remained with their SIMs games, I guess.

Further reading :

"Where has the humour gone ?", especially my entry at page 3 there : https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45726

"Am I the only one ?" : https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45156
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,909
Location
Old Europe
So those games are dark because of the combat theme? What is an example of a game which isn't dark? Because what you described as western games is games with realistic graphics and combat. So I'm not sure what is the dark theme.
Or are you saying that there doesn't has to be conflict in a game? that game wouldn't be dark?

What is a game with nice graphics for you? Because a lot of games with colourful graphics are... you know childish, but there is game like Submerged or The First tree, which does have a bit sad story, but they have nice colorful graphics.
But there is a lot of non combat games - if you don't like combat, you can play those - like The Book of unwritten tales, but even there is some sort of conflict, so maybe only games without emotions like Portal. There is plenty of those too on Steam. There are walking simulators, "painting" landscape, world builders, strategy games like Guilds. There was even a very popular dancing dot game.
 
Joined
Jun 23, 2021
Messages
173
The only genre where I would say it is dominant is MMOs. I wish there would be more of noncombat, but still meaningful activities, where I could roleplay an almost real character in an online virtual world. But I get very negative reactions to such proposals - like it would be just spam, what is the meaning of that, I keep answering - there is the same meaning like: kill 10 mobs. That is my only gripe, because such MMO is non existant. Or atleast good MMO which is not JRPG.
 
Joined
Jun 23, 2021
Messages
173
Back
Top Bottom