It's way too non-pc for larger studios/publishers. Some anons have brought this up in earlier threads. Slavery, cannibalism, implied rape, racism (or rather racewars), skimpy clothing (which is kinda setting appropriate) etc. being very inherent to the setting makes it difficult if not impossible to make more woke. If a larger corporation did go for the IP the finished product would be unrecognizable from the source material. Also being non-quip-friendly and a silly setting for seeking "romances" because of the constantly looming existential threat is non-acceptable these days.
They would make it something similiar to Fury Road in tone at a best case scenario. Being a dark and violent setting with very little le quirky whimsical adventures to be had is a no-go.
Anon just be content there are still some unmolested IP:s/settings out there.
>It's way too non-pc for larger studios/publishers
I've seen variatione of this argument for a decade now, one might think that there would be a market or even an interest in those "non-pc" games outside of outright porn/rape VNs. It's not like selling those games would be too difficult either, even if steam won't very likely sell it with an A0 rating.
Why would anyone buy an orange tinted rape simulator based on an IP barely anyone knows if you could pirate Skyrim and loverslab mods
2 years ago
Anonymous
Because Skyrim has shitty combat, character building, itemization, dialogue, quests, and is also over a decade old.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Well there is limits to skyrim modding anon.
Yes and there are limits to tabletop settings being convertable into videogames.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Those being? In your idea.
Tyranny was made. It was still gay as shit.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I'm confused. Do you just want a Pillars of Eternity clone with exposition dump for worldbuilding? That's not "too woke", as long as you don't graphically depict the rape etc nobody cares
2 years ago
Anonymous
The limit is the permission of the IP holders, who usually have no relation to the creators. Video game developers are cowards, most people are because of the all seeing eye of mass communication and people's obsession with finding someone or something to attack.
2 years ago
Anonymous
If you want to go all-in and animate some non-consensual Thrie-Kreen on Minotaur action then of course you'd get an Adult-Only rating and all the major distributors will jump ship, same as it ever was.
If you're just inserting a text-box describing the scene nobody would care that much. As I said, rape, racism etc are common themes in many AAA games
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yes while I agree a bit with you semi schizo post, social net explosion really is something new and difficulty to get a hold on, its fascinating how you can see how violences starts to brew up , and how scapegoating gets constructed to diffuse situations.
There is still ways to be anonymous or be nuanced on how to create a project. You just need to be smart, have passion and tons of work. The reality however is that people dont really give a shit.
That anon does have a point, regardless if culturally we are in a pit of shit, dark sun is not that important overall, itself its just a derivative from sword and sorcery and other bigger and more artistically important works of art from other people.
In the end I still play a variant of dark sun in tabletop with friends until we dont, and move on to something else. No amount of whining will make tehse games appear in this current trend.
Maybe it will return one day who knows. Sometimes it used to be cool to be outrageous and edgy.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>important
This is another part of the equation, social media obsession in business and art creates a mentality that something must reach as broad an audience as possible. Too many developers aren't satisfied with being small and focused.
It's way too non-pc for larger studios/publishers. Some anons have brought this up in earlier threads. Slavery, cannibalism, implied rape, racism (or rather racewars), skimpy clothing (which is kinda setting appropriate) etc. being very inherent to the setting makes it difficult if not impossible to make more woke. If a larger corporation did go for the IP the finished product would be unrecognizable from the source material. Also being non-quip-friendly and a silly setting for seeking "romances" because of the constantly looming existential threat is non-acceptable these days.
They would make it something similiar to Fury Road in tone at a best case scenario. Being a dark and violent setting with very little le quirky whimsical adventures to be had is a no-go.
Anon just be content there are still some unmolested IP:s/settings out there.
It's of course my argument to make something similar to this already existing IP. It goes without saying that a major studio won't make a game that revolves around rape, cannibalism and racism in the most graphic way, even though those themes are regularly present in mass-appeal normalgay games like Witcher, Betheda Fallout, etc etc
[...]
It's of course my argument to make something similar to this already existing IP. It goes without saying that a major studio won't make a game that revolves around rape, cannibalism and racism in the most graphic way, even though those themes are regularly present in mass-appeal normalgay games like Witcher, Betheda Fallout, etc etc
If you want to go all-in and animate some non-consensual Thrie-Kreen on Minotaur action then of course you'd get an Adult-Only rating and all the major distributors will jump ship, same as it ever was.
If you're just inserting a text-box describing the scene nobody would care that much. As I said, rape, racism etc are common themes in many AAA games
They might be not-too-uncommon in some games/settings, but the whole essence of dark sun is that being *good* is not only difficult, but it is often downright suicidal. Also if they tone down the setting to allow for a softer approach, being constistently morally righteous, having romances and being more quip-friendly to a degree modern audiences are more used to, a large chunk of the essence of the setting will be lost. In fallout, killing slavers might not always be easy, but you will be regarded as a hero for doing so. In Dark Sun you'll be considered a terrorist and a bothersome meddler in the status quo. Also the cruelty of the setting extends all the way to the player characters, as Muls are the result of forced breeding programs (rape). Arcanum had one sidequest for the origins of half-ogres (surprise, rape and forced-breeding) and moderns reviewers viewed it as extremely tasteless, antisemitic (not even kidding) and bad world-building. Yeah someone could do a modern take on a dark sun -esque setting in a game, but it would be watered down to blandness or it would be a niche game with very little resources behind it. Something like age of decadence (production-wise, not talking about gameplay here) might be the best case scenario. The price for making the setting as threatening and cruel would result in a limited audience, which is sad as that's the whole point, it is truly a crapsack world where survival trumps all. And that's why surviving in it against the odds is "fun". Toning it down results in just another generic-ish fantasy world.
Dark Souls, and even Warhammer, show that there's plenty of demand for dark fantasy settings. It just can't be as a D&D setting. Which is fine. It is a product of when TSR was spewing out settings and world building because they had directives not to spend time playtesting.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Dark Souls and Warhammer(40k) sure are grimdark (often grimderp), but I think being settings so focused on heavy combat on a mass scale (warhammer especially) the psychological effect implied in the quote "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." steps into play. The scale is so absurd you can't really consider individuals and the perspective is more "factions/species fighting with each other" than "individuals fricking eachother over". The imperium exterminatus'ing a planet is usually not done callously but to ensure the survival of the species. The moral values in play are entirely different. Dark Sun on the other hand is a world fricked over by selfishness.
Just my take. I'm interested to see how owlcat will handle the setting, though my expectations are low.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I was thinking Warhammer Fantasy. I like 40k, but I don't view it as a serious setting. It is more like "what if a heavy metal album cover was a wargame setting".
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah I know what you mean, but most of the same, especially the insane scale of essentially perpetual conflict, still applies. Not so much "can I survive" but "can my race survive".
>Arcanum had one sidequest for the origins of half-ogres (surprise, rape and forced-breeding) and moderns reviewers viewed it as extremely tasteless, antisemitic (not even kidding)
Gnomes fit almost every israeli stereotype (big nose, devotion to material wealth and family, ambitions in banking, politics and industry owners) and according to that specific quest they gained power in Tarrant by murdering the previous ruler and running a human trafficking ring to breed their mentally submissive bodyguards by making ogres rape human women.
>the whole essence of dark sun is that being *good* is not only difficult, but it is often downright suicidal.
All the Dark Sun adventure modules are supposed to be played as a party of good aligned characters. You are overselling the edge of the setting.
2 years ago
Anonymous
At least in the older modules the creators specificially stated that they wanted the players to be faced with difficult moral situations where picking the good path might result in their deaths, straight up. Not a "rocks fall - everyone dies" gotcha, but seriously having to consider if they'll have enough food & water for a larger group and facing the consequences (death) if shit hits the fan. Not overselling, it's more or less straight from the horses mouth. Nu-wotc might have done all kinds of homosexual watered-down products but that's just cancer.
2 years ago
Anonymous
No anon, even the oldest adventure modules are tied into the Prism Pentad dark sun books with your party helping the heroes from those books free Tyr from slavery and protect it from outside evil.
2 years ago
Anonymous
It might be that you are misinterpreting my point, or that I stated it unclearly. Of course the player characters are usually supposed to lean towards good when possible (there are multiple outright evil/evil-serving pc backgrounds/classes though), but the creators are on record saying that being good should often not be easy or the obvious choice and the situations should at times be so dire choosing the morally good option is, if not suicidal, then at the least immensely difficult. Doing morally dubious things that hurt innocents might be sometimes required to serve the "greater good" (e.g. fricking over starving citizens to not starve yourself and live to fight the oppressors in the future, something the innocent citizens might not be able to do as efficiently).
Dark Souls and Warhammer(40k) sure are grimdark (often grimderp), but I think being settings so focused on heavy combat on a mass scale (warhammer especially) the psychological effect implied in the quote "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." steps into play. The scale is so absurd you can't really consider individuals and the perspective is more "factions/species fighting with each other" than "individuals fricking eachother over". The imperium exterminatus'ing a planet is usually not done callously but to ensure the survival of the species. The moral values in play are entirely different. Dark Sun on the other hand is a world fricked over by selfishness.
Just my take. I'm interested to see how owlcat will handle the setting, though my expectations are low.
It might be that you are misinterpreting my point, or that I stated it unclearly. Of course the player characters are usually supposed to lean towards good when possible (there are multiple outright evil/evil-serving pc backgrounds/classes though), but the creators are on record saying that being good should often not be easy or the obvious choice and the situations should at times be so dire choosing the morally good option is, if not suicidal, then at the least immensely difficult. Doing morally dubious things that hurt innocents might be sometimes required to serve the "greater good" (e.g. fricking over starving citizens to not starve yourself and live to fight the oppressors in the future, something the innocent citizens might not be able to do as efficiently).
>They might be not-too-uncommon in some games/settings, but the whole essence of dark sun is that being *good* is not only difficult, but it is often downright suicidal >The moral values in play are entirely different. Dark Sun on the other hand is a world fricked over by selfishness.
1. You never played a single module of Dark Sun.
2. The same description applies entirely to vampire the Masquerade, Fallout, Tyranny, Disco Elysium or Fallen London - didn't keep those from being entirely acceptable and extremely popular among the pozzed crowd. More than that - such settings are most typically developed by people that could be easily described as very pozz. This literally includes Dark Sun itself.
Actually, thinking about popular vidya set in dystopian settings with aggressively anti-pozz stace and/or developers, the only ones that come to mind are Highfleet and Underrail.
2 years ago
Anonymous
If you don't understand how the modern media (including vidya) landscape has changed in it's attitudes towards handling unsavoury subject matters and how all-encomppassingly it affects the tone, theme and presentation of modern releases then you're missing the central point here, totally. Devs of yore might have been "pozzed" in their own right, but how things were presented, or rather how they are represented in an "acceptable" manner, was completely different from today. Nuance in media presentation is dead. If you don't understand how this castrates a setting like dark sun you don't understand what were even discussing.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Dark Sun is more cartoon fantasy than the subject matter that is in recent games like Pathfinder, Tyranny, Disco Elysium and Pillars of Eternity.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Might be, but if anything that only enhances the point: the tone and presentation matter hugely.
I mean realistically. The gnomes thing in arcanum was obviously anti-semitic. And thats a good thing. Because they tried something different and actually went for unique storylines that deviated from the tireless high fantasy tropes
2 years ago
Anonymous
>obviously anti-semitic
Please run with this, elaborate.
2 years ago
Anonymous
It's funny because assuming it is anti-semitic means you agree that israelites are doing some really fricked up stuff.
Fricking lol anon. Dark Sun was being sold to kids and teenagers. It's a D&D campaign setting available in toy shops. This is like you trying to make Jim Henson's Dark Crystal sound like an edgelord fantasy because it also has cartoonish versions of slavery and genocide.
> Slavery, cannibalism, implied rape, racism (or rather racewars), skimpy clothing (which is kinda setting appropriate) etc. being very inherent to the setting makes it difficult if not impossible to make more woke.
Utterly nonsensical post.
They made a decently successful Conan game and it had all of those things, and far more explicitly than Dark Sun ever had them.
That is all deflated if you know even a little bit about the setting, namely that it's earth in a fantastical past. So the world doesn't end up as bad as Athas. You are ignorant.
You appear to be ignorant of the Dark Sun setting. Athas is not without hope and truly lost. The campaign world was made as a world that evil thought it had triumphed over but your party of heroes will save. If you follow the adventures that TSR published you even begin the start of prosperity by creating an Avangion.
2 years ago
Anonymous
That was later homosexualry by wotc, the original dragon/sorcerer kings were literally unkillable, per the older rules. I'm not against there being hope for good, that's kinda of a big point of the setting, being good despite there being very little hope to be had, but the more it is diluted the more generic the setting becomes.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Read the actual books not just the wiki. These decisions were all under TSR, even The Dragon is stabbed to death in one of them. WotC actually rebooted the setting back to just after Tyr was freed for 4e undoing all the dead sorcerer kings that happened during the 2e plot line.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>all under TSR
and all ignored by people with any semblance of taste
People used to fricking hate Troy Denning well into the 3.5E era for the books leading into the dogshit reboot
2 years ago
Anonymous
These plots happen in the guidebooks, the lore and adventures not just the novels. When I told you to read the actual books I meant the campaign guidebooks. But you want to cling to your idea of what Dark Sun is in your mind from reading the wiki not what it actually was.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Okay I am just lurking but why are you circling the guy around trying to convince him dark sun is as benign as other settings?
I think the idea that shit today is gay as frick is pretty much a fact.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>you
Here's a hint: you are replying to more than one single poster. Redditor.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>read the shitty books with the gayest "setting plot advancement" known to man >ignore the original books
Yeah no, I'm good with the originals.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Also creating an avangion is kinda like waiting for the messiah, yeah it just might happen, but the instant it does and is not countered by something the setting is more or less "over", i.e. the nature of the world and the setting is changed irrevocably.
Further, if a small studio tried to do it, WotC would kill it on a board review after demanding all of the slavery and race wars be removed and replaced with trans Athasian bard troupes and gay LGBT elves. Also make the templars and sorcerer kings feel more papal and corporate for good measure.
The only thing they'd keep and play up is the environmental struggle.
TSR over-extended themselves with settings and fantasy novels, ending them, and then WoTC went too far the other way and pulled everything back into "safe" generic fantasy. I blame the Peter Jackson movies as well.
Not super obscure or anything, but I rarely see people bring up the Eschalon series. Book 1 and 2 are great games, and they're only RPGs I can think of that have a cartography skill (you don't get a map unless you invest into cartography, and the map gets more detailed the more points you put into it).
Unfortunately, Book 3 is a shit game and ends the series on a really bad note. But each game is (mostly) a self-contained story, so it doesn't really matter that much.
Anon, you didn't understand the purpose of this thread. OP wanted another round of b***hing about muh pozzed woke culture for which Dark Sun threads became a template for (of course, right after one certain youtuber made a "le hidden gem" video on the games). Not an actual discussion.
What the frick are you on about? The preservers go full Ted Kaczynski in Dark Sun (which is good). Defilers on the other hand are pretty much the ultimate evil in Dark Sun and are on the establishment's side. That was one half-assed strawmanning attempt you tried. Shame anon, shame.
Why do e-celebs live in your head? I have zero idea who you're talking about. Dark Sun is a great setting, but it is very unappealing for the woke/pc crowd for reasons mentioned earlier in the thread.
I could appreaciate the irony if they did defile the original setting to make it more pc though.
>thread filled with varied game discussion >troony sees a Dark Sun image >immediately triggered >dilates furiously as he types his thread derailing shitpost >will never derail a thread as much as he's derailed his life
Why do e-celebs live in your head? I have zero idea who you're talking about. Dark Sun is a great setting, but it is very unappealing for the woke/pc crowd for reasons mentioned earlier in the thread.
I could appreaciate the irony if they did defile the original setting to make it more pc though.
True environmentalism is right wing. Progressive "environmentalism" is a meaningless larp.
Just like i said, the thread has nothing to fo with Dark Sun or RPGs, and is kinda tolerable because of how good the crowd on /vrpg/ generlaly is.
Of course, all of you homosexuals are hardcore Dark Sun enthusiasts with 25+ years of experience in keeping it safe from woke pc troony Black person liberals. It is just so happened that you started to post in the last three months, when a popular youtuber made a video about the game.
I played a tabletop campaign once. I was a cleric to the water element. He was this opulent fat guy in silk robes with a ton of slaves who was a coward in combat and stayed in the back to heal people. He made a lot of his money by providing fresh water for struggling communities we visited. When traveling, he sat in a palanquin that his slaves transported.
Everyone else had cool things like thrikreen psionists, mul gladiators and half giant fighters. But I loved the frick out of my cowardly ali baba merchant.
I was the first person to shill Dark Sun: Shattered Lands on this board, but I think it's almost overrated at this point. The intro is fantastic, but the rest of the game never reaches the same heights. Some picks of my own...
>Anvil of Dawn
Has a lot of mediocre elements, but the atmosphere and soundtrack are so intoxicating that they are easy to overlook >Amberstar, Ambermoon, and Albion
Albion isn't that obscure anymore, but its spiritual predecessors Amberstar and Ambermoon definitely are and in many ways are superior to Albion. >Betrayal at Krondor
The writing is so fricking good and it's hard to find anyone to discuss the story with >Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun
A relatively simple, but highly enjoyable CRPG-style game on the Genesis. >The Elder Scrolls: Battlespire
Yes, Battlespire. I believe it gets unfairly shits upon because it's not a traditional ES game and rather difficult, but it has superb atmosphere and good writing. >Fate: Gates of Dawn
Extremely ambitious open world RPG on the Amiga. You can control up to 28 characters in several different parties, and it will take you at least a few hundred hours to complete. >The Magic Candle series
Some of the best Ultima clones there is, period. >Ravenloft: Stone Prophet
Fixes all of the issues with the first game and is just a well made dungeon crawler in every respect. >Realms of Arkania Trilogy
Hardcore Eurojank, but highly worth it if you have the patience. This series was actually very popular in Europe, but is not as well known in the US. >Prince of Qin & Seal of Evil
Baldur's Gate clones set in a mythical version of China, and actually developed in China too (not Taiwan). Very cool games, and recently re-released on Steam and GOG. >Wizardry VII
Not obscure, but I don't think it gets the credit it deserves these days. As far as hardcore CRPGs go, it will always be near the top.
>Has a lot of mediocre elements
It also has a solid amounts of bugs, ranging from annoying to game-crashing. Plus RNG bullshit, and incomplete devwork.
I remember going to a obscure pc gaming I missed a few years back and I was impressed by how classy Return to Krondor was.
Fantasy writing really IS shit these days, frick you pillars and pathfinder. And return to krondor is full of issues but people still knew what fantasy was supposed to be about.
[...]
[...]
Just like i said, the thread has nothing to fo with Dark Sun or RPGs, and is kinda tolerable because of how good the crowd on /vrpg/ generlaly is.
Of course, all of you homosexuals are hardcore Dark Sun enthusiasts with 25+ years of experience in keeping it safe from woke pc troony Black person liberals. It is just so happened that you started to post in the last three months, when a popular youtuber made a video about the game.
What vid, I am really curious I woudl like to know more about Dark sun rpg, its on my list to play.
Is betrayal at krondor really worth playing in 2022? I dont struggle to play very late 90s or early 2000s games but I dont even bother trying with 80s and early 90s games because the graphics are just too jarring.
How does the story, originality, and characters hold up for Betrayal at krondor for someone who loves Planescape, deus ex, and kotor?
Pre-Original Sin Divinity series. They were mentioned in the thread.
Single player mid-2000s Drakensang games.
Space Siege, always in the shadow of Dungeon Siege.
There are some interesting slavjank titles but i won't bore you with them.
>Betrayal at Krondor
I have to play it.
I remember going to a obscure pc gaming I missed a few years back and I was impressed by how classy Return to Krondor was.
Fantasy writing really IS shit these days, frick you pillars and pathfinder. And return to krondor is full of issues but people still knew what fantasy was supposed to be about.
[...]
What vid, I am really curious I woudl like to know more about Dark sun rpg, its on my list to play.
The Outer Worlds, developed by Obsidian Entertainment which has made some of the legendary status RPGs such as Fallout: NV and KOTOR 2, kind of feels like a mix between the two, the only thing holding it back is that the story is a bit short.
On the one hand, Shattered Lands is a fantastic game.
On the other hand, its really annoying how its become used as some sort of hipster gatekeeping game.
Dark Sun by WotC 2k22 >heroic PoC troony tribes fighting oppresive, white, toxic and male sorcerer kings >no slavery to fight against tho, sorcerers' oppresion consist on misgendering and using wrong pronouns >female Mary Sue type protagonist >all party members engaging in cuckolding, polyamory and social activism >PEGI 7+
>manly, bearded jaw >projecting
thanks for the compliment, but it won't change my stance, I don't date transwomen
2 years ago
Anonymous
I couldn't care less but people bringing up trannies for no reason are 100% trannies themselves
You hate him because he spits the truth.
samegay, inb4 inspect element
2 years ago
Anonymous
>i couldn't care less about trannies >gets really mad when people make fun of trannies >actually says 'transwoman' instead of troony or troon >i'm not a troony i swear
lol
lmao even
the point is that current year WotC would butcher the setting, leaving only non-offensive, generic fantasy with representation of PoC and LGBTQAIPNZ+ and you know it's true.
As much as I dislike " be the change you want to be" posters, they have a point.
Millennials need to fricking turn around and look at the mirror, they have been abandoned by their own age group and the one before it with homosexualry.
Its time to change.
There are plenty of people here working in their own games and projects... looking for the good old days and so many nerds yelling and crying about good times.. so? Go ahead. Do it anons.
The Pale City
Very immersive despite the basic graphics
If you're looking for something similar in tone and atmosphere to PS:T, you'll definitely enjoy it
by Nival Interactive. They also did Etherlords, highly recommended rpg/card game hybrid.
the point is that current year WotC would butcher the setting, leaving only non-offensive, generic fantasy with representation of PoC and LGBTQAIPNZ+ and you know it's true.
>I've had wet dreams about a well-made rpg in the dark sun universe
Why hasn't it been made yet? It's a great setting for a game.
two posters in this thread are the only ones likely to buy it that's why
It's way too non-pc for larger studios/publishers. Some anons have brought this up in earlier threads. Slavery, cannibalism, implied rape, racism (or rather racewars), skimpy clothing (which is kinda setting appropriate) etc. being very inherent to the setting makes it difficult if not impossible to make more woke. If a larger corporation did go for the IP the finished product would be unrecognizable from the source material. Also being non-quip-friendly and a silly setting for seeking "romances" because of the constantly looming existential threat is non-acceptable these days.
They would make it something similiar to Fury Road in tone at a best case scenario. Being a dark and violent setting with very little le quirky whimsical adventures to be had is a no-go.
Anon just be content there are still some unmolested IP:s/settings out there.
This is true but it would be cool to see some modders remaster the existing games.
>modders
>remaster
You are going to need someone who is willing to code an entire new engine from scratch if you aren't going 3D.
>It's way too non-pc for larger studios/publishers
I've seen variatione of this argument for a decade now, one might think that there would be a market or even an interest in those "non-pc" games outside of outright porn/rape VNs. It's not like selling those games would be too difficult either, even if steam won't very likely sell it with an A0 rating.
People who make RPGs are usually risk-averse or over-socialized. Market or demand can't fix weak nerd men.
Why would anyone buy an orange tinted rape simulator based on an IP barely anyone knows if you could pirate Skyrim and loverslab mods
Because Skyrim has shitty combat, character building, itemization, dialogue, quests, and is also over a decade old.
Yes and there are limits to tabletop settings being convertable into videogames.
Those being? In your idea.
Tyranny was made. It was still gay as shit.
I'm confused. Do you just want a Pillars of Eternity clone with exposition dump for worldbuilding? That's not "too woke", as long as you don't graphically depict the rape etc nobody cares
The limit is the permission of the IP holders, who usually have no relation to the creators. Video game developers are cowards, most people are because of the all seeing eye of mass communication and people's obsession with finding someone or something to attack.
If you want to go all-in and animate some non-consensual Thrie-Kreen on Minotaur action then of course you'd get an Adult-Only rating and all the major distributors will jump ship, same as it ever was.
If you're just inserting a text-box describing the scene nobody would care that much. As I said, rape, racism etc are common themes in many AAA games
Yes while I agree a bit with you semi schizo post, social net explosion really is something new and difficulty to get a hold on, its fascinating how you can see how violences starts to brew up , and how scapegoating gets constructed to diffuse situations.
There is still ways to be anonymous or be nuanced on how to create a project. You just need to be smart, have passion and tons of work. The reality however is that people dont really give a shit.
That anon does have a point, regardless if culturally we are in a pit of shit, dark sun is not that important overall, itself its just a derivative from sword and sorcery and other bigger and more artistically important works of art from other people.
In the end I still play a variant of dark sun in tabletop with friends until we dont, and move on to something else. No amount of whining will make tehse games appear in this current trend.
Maybe it will return one day who knows. Sometimes it used to be cool to be outrageous and edgy.
>important
This is another part of the equation, social media obsession in business and art creates a mentality that something must reach as broad an audience as possible. Too many developers aren't satisfied with being small and focused.
Well there is limits to skyrim modding anon.
It's of course my argument to make something similar to this already existing IP. It goes without saying that a major studio won't make a game that revolves around rape, cannibalism and racism in the most graphic way, even though those themes are regularly present in mass-appeal normalgay games like Witcher, Betheda Fallout, etc etc
They might be not-too-uncommon in some games/settings, but the whole essence of dark sun is that being *good* is not only difficult, but it is often downright suicidal. Also if they tone down the setting to allow for a softer approach, being constistently morally righteous, having romances and being more quip-friendly to a degree modern audiences are more used to, a large chunk of the essence of the setting will be lost. In fallout, killing slavers might not always be easy, but you will be regarded as a hero for doing so. In Dark Sun you'll be considered a terrorist and a bothersome meddler in the status quo. Also the cruelty of the setting extends all the way to the player characters, as Muls are the result of forced breeding programs (rape). Arcanum had one sidequest for the origins of half-ogres (surprise, rape and forced-breeding) and moderns reviewers viewed it as extremely tasteless, antisemitic (not even kidding) and bad world-building. Yeah someone could do a modern take on a dark sun -esque setting in a game, but it would be watered down to blandness or it would be a niche game with very little resources behind it. Something like age of decadence (production-wise, not talking about gameplay here) might be the best case scenario. The price for making the setting as threatening and cruel would result in a limited audience, which is sad as that's the whole point, it is truly a crapsack world where survival trumps all. And that's why surviving in it against the odds is "fun". Toning it down results in just another generic-ish fantasy world.
Dark Souls, and even Warhammer, show that there's plenty of demand for dark fantasy settings. It just can't be as a D&D setting. Which is fine. It is a product of when TSR was spewing out settings and world building because they had directives not to spend time playtesting.
Dark Souls and Warhammer(40k) sure are grimdark (often grimderp), but I think being settings so focused on heavy combat on a mass scale (warhammer especially) the psychological effect implied in the quote "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." steps into play. The scale is so absurd you can't really consider individuals and the perspective is more "factions/species fighting with each other" than "individuals fricking eachother over". The imperium exterminatus'ing a planet is usually not done callously but to ensure the survival of the species. The moral values in play are entirely different. Dark Sun on the other hand is a world fricked over by selfishness.
Just my take. I'm interested to see how owlcat will handle the setting, though my expectations are low.
I was thinking Warhammer Fantasy. I like 40k, but I don't view it as a serious setting. It is more like "what if a heavy metal album cover was a wargame setting".
Yeah I know what you mean, but most of the same, especially the insane scale of essentially perpetual conflict, still applies. Not so much "can I survive" but "can my race survive".
>Arcanum had one sidequest for the origins of half-ogres (surprise, rape and forced-breeding) and moderns reviewers viewed it as extremely tasteless, antisemitic (not even kidding)
Gnomes fit almost every israeli stereotype (big nose, devotion to material wealth and family, ambitions in banking, politics and industry owners) and according to that specific quest they gained power in Tarrant by murdering the previous ruler and running a human trafficking ring to breed their mentally submissive bodyguards by making ogres rape human women.
The popularity of a game like that would spread via word-of-mouth.
They would also have to avoid doing any early-access.
>the whole essence of dark sun is that being *good* is not only difficult, but it is often downright suicidal.
All the Dark Sun adventure modules are supposed to be played as a party of good aligned characters. You are overselling the edge of the setting.
At least in the older modules the creators specificially stated that they wanted the players to be faced with difficult moral situations where picking the good path might result in their deaths, straight up. Not a "rocks fall - everyone dies" gotcha, but seriously having to consider if they'll have enough food & water for a larger group and facing the consequences (death) if shit hits the fan. Not overselling, it's more or less straight from the horses mouth. Nu-wotc might have done all kinds of homosexual watered-down products but that's just cancer.
No anon, even the oldest adventure modules are tied into the Prism Pentad dark sun books with your party helping the heroes from those books free Tyr from slavery and protect it from outside evil.
It might be that you are misinterpreting my point, or that I stated it unclearly. Of course the player characters are usually supposed to lean towards good when possible (there are multiple outright evil/evil-serving pc backgrounds/classes though), but the creators are on record saying that being good should often not be easy or the obvious choice and the situations should at times be so dire choosing the morally good option is, if not suicidal, then at the least immensely difficult. Doing morally dubious things that hurt innocents might be sometimes required to serve the "greater good" (e.g. fricking over starving citizens to not starve yourself and live to fight the oppressors in the future, something the innocent citizens might not be able to do as efficiently).
>They might be not-too-uncommon in some games/settings, but the whole essence of dark sun is that being *good* is not only difficult, but it is often downright suicidal
>The moral values in play are entirely different. Dark Sun on the other hand is a world fricked over by selfishness.
1. You never played a single module of Dark Sun.
2. The same description applies entirely to vampire the Masquerade, Fallout, Tyranny, Disco Elysium or Fallen London - didn't keep those from being entirely acceptable and extremely popular among the pozzed crowd. More than that - such settings are most typically developed by people that could be easily described as very pozz. This literally includes Dark Sun itself.
Actually, thinking about popular vidya set in dystopian settings with aggressively anti-pozz stace and/or developers, the only ones that come to mind are Highfleet and Underrail.
If you don't understand how the modern media (including vidya) landscape has changed in it's attitudes towards handling unsavoury subject matters and how all-encomppassingly it affects the tone, theme and presentation of modern releases then you're missing the central point here, totally. Devs of yore might have been "pozzed" in their own right, but how things were presented, or rather how they are represented in an "acceptable" manner, was completely different from today. Nuance in media presentation is dead. If you don't understand how this castrates a setting like dark sun you don't understand what were even discussing.
Dark Sun is more cartoon fantasy than the subject matter that is in recent games like Pathfinder, Tyranny, Disco Elysium and Pillars of Eternity.
Might be, but if anything that only enhances the point: the tone and presentation matter hugely.
I mean realistically. The gnomes thing in arcanum was obviously anti-semitic. And thats a good thing. Because they tried something different and actually went for unique storylines that deviated from the tireless high fantasy tropes
>obviously anti-semitic
Please run with this, elaborate.
It's funny because assuming it is anti-semitic means you agree that israelites are doing some really fricked up stuff.
>he thinks they care about potential markets
>Slavery, cannibalism, implied rape, racism (or rather racewars), skimpy clothing
no different than anything in Conan.
Yeah but homosexuals of the coast owns Dark Sun. Unless they sell the IP there is no hope.
See
>Slavery, cannibalism, implied rape, racism (or rather racewars), skimpy clothing
Fricking Skyrim had those, stop coping.
>Skyrim had those
*with mods
>*with mods
Nope. All in the base game.
See
Technically, yes, however the scale, tone and being absolutely integral to the setting is very different.
Way to prove his point, moron. A game like Skyrim would never fly in the modern era.
Lacking wings, no game would truly ever fly
Humans have no wings but fly everyday. Curious that.
>Slavery, cannibalism, implied rape, racism (or rather racewars), skimpy clothing
All of these are in the Fallout series
See
Fricking lol anon. Dark Sun was being sold to kids and teenagers. It's a D&D campaign setting available in toy shops. This is like you trying to make Jim Henson's Dark Crystal sound like an edgelord fantasy because it also has cartoonish versions of slavery and genocide.
Robocop was loved by kids too. They really don't make 'em like they used to.
You're just underlining the point here. "Adults" of today are too brittle for the children's material of yesterday.
> Slavery, cannibalism, implied rape, racism (or rather racewars), skimpy clothing (which is kinda setting appropriate) etc. being very inherent to the setting makes it difficult if not impossible to make more woke.
Utterly nonsensical post.
They made a decently successful Conan game and it had all of those things, and far more explicitly than Dark Sun ever had them.
see
That is all deflated if you know even a little bit about the setting, namely that it's earth in a fantastical past. So the world doesn't end up as bad as Athas. You are ignorant.
You appear to be ignorant of the Dark Sun setting. Athas is not without hope and truly lost. The campaign world was made as a world that evil thought it had triumphed over but your party of heroes will save. If you follow the adventures that TSR published you even begin the start of prosperity by creating an Avangion.
That was later homosexualry by wotc, the original dragon/sorcerer kings were literally unkillable, per the older rules. I'm not against there being hope for good, that's kinda of a big point of the setting, being good despite there being very little hope to be had, but the more it is diluted the more generic the setting becomes.
Read the actual books not just the wiki. These decisions were all under TSR, even The Dragon is stabbed to death in one of them. WotC actually rebooted the setting back to just after Tyr was freed for 4e undoing all the dead sorcerer kings that happened during the 2e plot line.
>all under TSR
and all ignored by people with any semblance of taste
People used to fricking hate Troy Denning well into the 3.5E era for the books leading into the dogshit reboot
These plots happen in the guidebooks, the lore and adventures not just the novels. When I told you to read the actual books I meant the campaign guidebooks. But you want to cling to your idea of what Dark Sun is in your mind from reading the wiki not what it actually was.
Okay I am just lurking but why are you circling the guy around trying to convince him dark sun is as benign as other settings?
I think the idea that shit today is gay as frick is pretty much a fact.
>you
Here's a hint: you are replying to more than one single poster. Redditor.
>read the shitty books with the gayest "setting plot advancement" known to man
>ignore the original books
Yeah no, I'm good with the originals.
Also creating an avangion is kinda like waiting for the messiah, yeah it just might happen, but the instant it does and is not countered by something the setting is more or less "over", i.e. the nature of the world and the setting is changed irrevocably.
Further, if a small studio tried to do it, WotC would kill it on a board review after demanding all of the slavery and race wars be removed and replaced with trans Athasian bard troupes and gay LGBT elves. Also make the templars and sorcerer kings feel more papal and corporate for good measure.
The only thing they'd keep and play up is the environmental struggle.
TSR over-extended themselves with settings and fantasy novels, ending them, and then WoTC went too far the other way and pulled everything back into "safe" generic fantasy. I blame the Peter Jackson movies as well.
I just finished Eternal Sonata which gets no love despite being amazingly beautiful, touching, and fun
It works on PS3 emu now. I want to try playing it
you wont be disappointed
If you don't like it by the first breakdown during the classical music then dang
I should replay this one of those days. The entire game is weird but also fun.
I liked the aesthetics, music, style, and etc., but the dialogue was very cringe.
Not super obscure or anything, but I rarely see people bring up the Eschalon series. Book 1 and 2 are great games, and they're only RPGs I can think of that have a cartography skill (you don't get a map unless you invest into cartography, and the map gets more detailed the more points you put into it).
Unfortunately, Book 3 is a shit game and ends the series on a really bad note. But each game is (mostly) a self-contained story, so it doesn't really matter that much.
>only RPGs I can think of that have a cartography skill
Wizardry 7
Might and Magic 3
Anon, you didn't understand the purpose of this thread. OP wanted another round of b***hing about muh pozzed woke culture for which Dark Sun threads became a template for (of course, right after one certain youtuber made a "le hidden gem" video on the games). Not an actual discussion.
They will also ignore all the environmentalism and save nature themes in the original setting and supplements.
What the frick are you on about? The preservers go full Ted Kaczynski in Dark Sun (which is good). Defilers on the other hand are pretty much the ultimate evil in Dark Sun and are on the establishment's side. That was one half-assed strawmanning attempt you tried. Shame anon, shame.
>muh strawman
There’s already been several dark sun threads where anons cry about how saving the planet isn’t one of the key parts of the setting.
>environmentalism is woke
I don't think you understand the term.
True environmentalism is right wing. Progressive "environmentalism" is a meaningless larp.
facts.
Why do e-celebs live in your head? I have zero idea who you're talking about. Dark Sun is a great setting, but it is very unappealing for the woke/pc crowd for reasons mentioned earlier in the thread.
I could appreaciate the irony if they did defile the original setting to make it more pc though.
>thread filled with varied game discussion
>troony sees a Dark Sun image
>immediately triggered
>dilates furiously as he types his thread derailing shitpost
>will never derail a thread as much as he's derailed his life
Just like i said, the thread has nothing to fo with Dark Sun or RPGs, and is kinda tolerable because of how good the crowd on /vrpg/ generlaly is.
Of course, all of you homosexuals are hardcore Dark Sun enthusiasts with 25+ years of experience in keeping it safe from woke pc troony Black person liberals. It is just so happened that you started to post in the last three months, when a popular youtuber made a video about the game.
I've been posting this image for a long time, anon. You just think everyone is as obsessed with Youtubers and idpol as you are. Classic projection.
Dark Sun doesn't deserve the "current year" attention.
I played a tabletop campaign once. I was a cleric to the water element. He was this opulent fat guy in silk robes with a ton of slaves who was a coward in combat and stayed in the back to heal people. He made a lot of his money by providing fresh water for struggling communities we visited. When traveling, he sat in a palanquin that his slaves transported.
Everyone else had cool things like thrikreen psionists, mul gladiators and half giant fighters. But I loved the frick out of my cowardly ali baba merchant.
I was the first person to shill Dark Sun: Shattered Lands on this board, but I think it's almost overrated at this point. The intro is fantastic, but the rest of the game never reaches the same heights. Some picks of my own...
>Anvil of Dawn
Has a lot of mediocre elements, but the atmosphere and soundtrack are so intoxicating that they are easy to overlook
>Amberstar, Ambermoon, and Albion
Albion isn't that obscure anymore, but its spiritual predecessors Amberstar and Ambermoon definitely are and in many ways are superior to Albion.
>Betrayal at Krondor
The writing is so fricking good and it's hard to find anyone to discuss the story with
>Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun
A relatively simple, but highly enjoyable CRPG-style game on the Genesis.
>The Elder Scrolls: Battlespire
Yes, Battlespire. I believe it gets unfairly shits upon because it's not a traditional ES game and rather difficult, but it has superb atmosphere and good writing.
>Fate: Gates of Dawn
Extremely ambitious open world RPG on the Amiga. You can control up to 28 characters in several different parties, and it will take you at least a few hundred hours to complete.
>The Magic Candle series
Some of the best Ultima clones there is, period.
>Ravenloft: Stone Prophet
Fixes all of the issues with the first game and is just a well made dungeon crawler in every respect.
>Realms of Arkania Trilogy
Hardcore Eurojank, but highly worth it if you have the patience. This series was actually very popular in Europe, but is not as well known in the US.
>Prince of Qin & Seal of Evil
Baldur's Gate clones set in a mythical version of China, and actually developed in China too (not Taiwan). Very cool games, and recently re-released on Steam and GOG.
>Wizardry VII
Not obscure, but I don't think it gets the credit it deserves these days. As far as hardcore CRPGs go, it will always be near the top.
I have some more, but I'm out of space.
>Wizardry VII
6 is better
VI is more accessible, but less ambitious
you're both wrong, Wiz4 is where it is at
Ok grandpa
>Has a lot of mediocre elements
It also has a solid amounts of bugs, ranging from annoying to game-crashing. Plus RNG bullshit, and incomplete devwork.
The over the top death animations in Anvil of Dawn made me chuckle
>Betrayal at Krondor
I have to play it.
I remember going to a obscure pc gaming I missed a few years back and I was impressed by how classy Return to Krondor was.
Fantasy writing really IS shit these days, frick you pillars and pathfinder. And return to krondor is full of issues but people still knew what fantasy was supposed to be about.
What vid, I am really curious I woudl like to know more about Dark sun rpg, its on my list to play.
Is betrayal at krondor really worth playing in 2022? I dont struggle to play very late 90s or early 2000s games but I dont even bother trying with 80s and early 90s games because the graphics are just too jarring.
How does the story, originality, and characters hold up for Betrayal at krondor for someone who loves Planescape, deus ex, and kotor?
>but I'm out of space.
IM GON SEND HIM TO OUTTA SPACE
TO FIND ANOTHER RACE
What are some underappreciated RPGs that deserved more attention?l that aren't over 20 years old?
That's actually a good question.
Divinity 2 Flames of Vengeance
I'll try that out.
Patrician choice.
You'll have to get through Ego Draconis first which is not a bad game either, but nowhere near the level of FoV
Storm of Zehir. Absolute comfy & soul.
Pre-Original Sin Divinity series. They were mentioned in the thread.
Single player mid-2000s Drakensang games.
Space Siege, always in the shadow of Dungeon Siege.
There are some interesting slavjank titles but i won't bore you with them.
The Outer Worlds, developed by Obsidian Entertainment which has made some of the legendary status RPGs such as Fallout: NV and KOTOR 2, kind of feels like a mix between the two, the only thing holding it back is that the story is a bit short.
As a hunter with a mind toward conservation I've always considered myself a Preserver irl.
On the one hand, Shattered Lands is a fantastic game.
On the other hand, its really annoying how its become used as some sort of hipster gatekeeping game.
On the gripping hand, anyone who is interested in the history of cRPGs should play it.
Someone truly interested in the history of CRPGs should start in the early 80s
With Ultima IV and Pool of Radiance, yes.
>hipsters
>playing a Dark Sun game
lol they'd have a vax induced heart attack
He means Ganker hipster
>want more Dark Sun
>know that CURRENT YEAR WotC would ruin it
Dark Sun by WotC 2k22
>heroic PoC troony tribes fighting oppresive, white, toxic and male sorcerer kings
>no slavery to fight against tho, sorcerers' oppresion consist on misgendering and using wrong pronouns
>female Mary Sue type protagonist
>all party members engaging in cuckolding, polyamory and social activism
>PEGI 7+
2014 humor
>2014 humor
2022 reality
brain smooth as glass
unlike your manly, bearded jaw, trannoid
Stop projecting you b***hmade homosexual
You hate him because he spits the truth.
>manly, bearded jaw
>projecting
thanks for the compliment, but it won't change my stance, I don't date transwomen
I couldn't care less but people bringing up trannies for no reason are 100% trannies themselves
samegay, inb4 inspect element
>i couldn't care less about trannies
>gets really mad when people make fun of trannies
>actually says 'transwoman' instead of troony or troon
>i'm not a troony i swear
lol
lmao even
excuse me xer I think you took a wrong turn somewhere. this isn't reddit.
the point is that current year WotC would butcher the setting, leaving only non-offensive, generic fantasy with representation of PoC and LGBTQAIPNZ+ and you know it's true.
As much as I dislike " be the change you want to be" posters, they have a point.
Millennials need to fricking turn around and look at the mirror, they have been abandoned by their own age group and the one before it with homosexualry.
Its time to change.
Amen
evil islands
summoner
i was confused why you identified yourself as gen x, but then i realize it was the >xer. i was referring to the fake troony pronoun
ah makes sense
Living through that in real time is the real clown world. Oh well
Oh man. That pic brings back some memories.
Why dont you create your own dreamed rpg? Vote for ideas and pay to programmers not caring about platforms or politics. Just the usual fun things.
A project like that needs to be passion-fueled. The list of crowdfunded failures is long and sad.
There are plenty of people here working in their own games and projects... looking for the good old days and so many nerds yelling and crying about good times.. so? Go ahead. Do it anons.
Call it: The Dungeon Master
,'"^)
The big one not found in other games is a successful genocidal pogrom. A world without Orcs is a beautiful thing.
The Pale City
Very immersive despite the basic graphics
If you're looking for something similar in tone and atmosphere to PS:T, you'll definitely enjoy it
>10 reviews
Devbro pls
>tone and atmosphere to PS:T
A lot of that came from very high engine and assets quality, which is the complete opposite of what you suggested.
the same Monolith that did Blood?
Monolith only published it. Rage of Mages was developed by a Russian studio.
by Nival Interactive. They also did Etherlords, highly recommended rpg/card game hybrid.
kek, nobody noticed noose
Faery Tale Adventure II: Halls of the Dead
Just three bros questing together in a comfy colorful world.
This looks fun and they all look like chill dudes.
how playable is Shattered Lands in the modern era? is it fun?
its interface will feel completely alien to a zoomer, but if you can get past that it's a lot of fun and it really is the best D&D setting
Triglav