Wrpgs are games with bad gameplay and have mediocre writing. What exactly are the redeeming qualities of this genre? I recently went back to try dragon age origins and mass effect 1. Both have gameplay that has a lot to be desired. And it’s obviously people play wrpgs like these for the story and characters. But even these qualities which are what wrpgs are supposed to be good at are below the quality youd find on cable tv shows. Your average big budget action movie will destroy any wrpg in terms of writing. Maybe the quality difference isn’t so drastic when you compare wrpgs with books in their respective genres as in sci fi and fantasy. But those genres are complete trash.
There’s a lot of writing that goes into your average wrpg but it’s a lot of trash.
I get to pick what i say
I get to play dress up dolls
I get to make numbers go up
What mores a man need?
I think it's self-insertion. C&C, but heavily favoring the illusion of choice. I tried to replay FNV recently and was taken aback by how little I cared about the outcomes of any quest. Once you see through the artificiality of mimesis, the whole genre just collapses in on itself.
Ya there’s something like that going on with wrpgs. It’s why I didn’t say jrpg. Jrpgs don’t have this choose your own adventure style wrpgs have. So I never return to jrpgs finding myself disappointed. It’s because I know what I’m getting myself into with jrpgs. But with wrpgs you imagine all these possibilities that the genre promises you with th ability to crate your character and make choices in game. But after panting through it once you realize that those choices were mainly me wingless and the story wasn’t really that good in that usually it involves setting up a plot then putting the plot on hold for most of the game as you do side quests and explore, and then at the end picks up the plot and goes straight to the conclusion. And if you even just watch anime you’ll see that the character writing isn’t that great.
Funny because I just replayed dragon age origins as well and had a blast between the gameplay and the story. The story especially is simple but effective. Killing the archdemon with your bro alistar feels good.
The idea of dragon age appeals to me but too much of it feels mediocre. If the entire game had the same quality as the orzammar section I’d call it a masterpiece. But too many sections are just places I want to move on from.
There is no such thing as a WRPG. It is not a genre.
>and have mediocre writing
Compared to eastern games where it's teenagers defeat gods with the power of friendship.
As opposed to western writing which consists of
>atheism, nihilism and evolution are the only objective truths
>but we gotta celebrate diversity in all its forms too.
thats literally most jrpgs and hell a lot of stories in general
You just described Final Troontasy 7.
>have mediocre writing
Compared to what other genre exactly?
Not OP but other genres have appeal beyond their writing. There are individually well-written games, but there's typically no correlation to genre.
So do WRPGs, but you can't single out a genre for bad writing and have no examples of genres with good writing.
No video games have good writing. I am astounded that this matters. Is your argument that people should enjoy wrpg writing because even tho it’s terrible it’s at least slightly better than other genres? I am being serious why do you think I needed to say which genres of video games it’s worse than? Does knowledge that wrpgs have better writing than madden make its writing compelling?
I already said. Compared to even cable tv. The genres reason to play it is about its setting which is bad. I don’t see why, because I take it your argument is that all video game wetting is bad, that matters. How does a genres writing become compelling only because it is on par with other video games even if they are all bad? I myself don’t understand how you can be immersed in such terrible writing just because you can know that other video games also have bad writing
>man this writing in this wrpg is so bad
>but tommy, don’t you know that even though this wrpg has terrible writing it is still slightly better than other video games?
>wow, now that I know that I am getting so immersed in the writing of this game, thanks for letting me know
>no problem tommy, I am always there to help people consume more video games.
To most people these games have great writing because most people have abysmal standards. I don't know if they just don't engage with any other medium or if they're so moronic they can only focus on what's currently in front of them and lack the ability to compare but it's the truth
Great post, anon. It deserved dubs but I’ll give it a (you) instead
Bit of a stupid comparison then. Writing for an interactive medium is completely different than writing for movies, TV shows or books. It's the same reason you don't see people comparing the gameplay of fricking mobiles to shit like DMC3.
As I just said, when you single out a specific genre for having mediocre writing, whilst having no other genre to compare it to, it's kind of dumb. And I haven't even made an argument or anything yet, I was just curious as to what genre he would say has good writing.
I don’t see it being a bad comparison. Writing does not change its quality simply et being put into video game form. I’d be interested to hear why you think that is the case. Writing is writing. Just like how just because it is a movie that does not change how people should perceive the quality of writing. What can happen is that writing can be overlooked depending on what else the medium has good g for it. For example many people will overlook poor writing in movies if there are cool action scenes. Or in video games like dark souls people will overlook writing because they like the gameplay. But when it comes to books the writing is all it has and so nobody will read a book that they think had poor writing because what else would it have going for it? And so with wrpgs they are games in general that are known for having merely passable gameplay. People play the games to experience the story, lore and characters. That is the general thought of what wrpgs have to offer, the writing and th player freedom. This post is not about player freedom in wrpgs but it should be obvious to anyone who’s analyzed video games for a while that wrpgs have this illusion of freedom whether it comes to non linear progressions or when it comes to making important choices in game. But when it comes to writing in wrpgs, the writing is not good. People in the past used to claim bioware had good writing when it came to character and lore. I don’t think I tho that people could honestly say that anymore. I don’t think anyone could say that about any wrpg that exists. The writing is bad. Wrpgs have no qualities they excel at. There is nothing they do good. The only thing they do well is tricking people into thinking that they offer these grand adventures where you c an influence what happens.
tldr but no writing is not writing. there is a difference in writing for a main character, side characters, main quest, side quests, and miscellaneous lore etc not to mention menus and systems compared to a 2 hour movie with a total of 5 real speaking characters. huge difference actually. movies are very simple compared to games which means a lot more focus is on the narrative because thats pretty much all you're getting. the workload for vidya is totally different than a movie and the consume experiences them completely differently. to compare them is folly.
I disagree. I think your comparison only shows a difference in length. But I do see writing as writing. A side quest in a game can have the same level of quality as seen in a novel. This is not the case in practice only because side quests are fluff for video games and so they are done lazily quite often. They will write many of them to pad out the game. But it certainly could be possible for every aspect in a game to have the level of quality you would see in the best novels.
Okay, now take that short quest, and add writing for:
>Getting the player invested in the story being told
>different character archetypes/morality
>Provide alternative ways of completing the side quest that also align with narrative
>Have it be tonally consist with the rest of the game world and characters
>Multiple dialogue options that take into account the character's stats for skill checks
>Multiple endings
To compare writing for a book to writing for a video game, WRPGs especially, is beyond stupid. Theoretically, JRPGs should have some of the best writing, since they're obnoxiously linear and put more focus on characters, pacing and drama, rather than role-playing, variety, character building, dialogue options, replayability, lore and world-building.
You raise an interesting point, but what I'd point out is that's basically all overly-ambitious bloat that rarely gets fulfilled anyways. Disco Elysium gets celebrated for its writing, but once you realize almost all your dialogue options are extremely specific and one-dimensional to one of Harry's prescribed archetypes, it puts a big damper on the whole experience. You say the writing isn't comparable because of those difficulties, but that's just pinning the culprit for the mediocrity and lowering your standards to cope. Having player freedom can be a useful uplifting storytelling device, but I think that's ironically best demonstrated by how visual novels often use one path to recontextualize or reflect another. Do you see that with whether you pick Gizmo or Killian in Junktown or side with the NCR or House in New Vegas? I hope ME3 requires no explanation, but its problems could be seen in the micro-scale back in ME1's dialogue wheel. Games like Darkwood and Cruelty Squad demonstrate ways the medium is uniquely effective at telling stories that you'll basically never see WRPGs or JRPGs use.
I never played DE because it put me off aesthetically, so I can't speak to the quality of the writing. Nor have I ever played a VN, since they're just glorified picture books. In regards to the Fallout comparison, no I don't think one side is often used to recontextualise or reflect on the other, because a lot of the times decisions such as that are on a large scale and affects of such decisions are usually reserved for the end of the game. Again, a scenario with 1-4 possible outcomes that also has to accommodate various playstyles or character morality, is not the same thing as writing a linear story for linear characters where the place has zero to almost no input in dialogue or relationships.
For a simple comparison, imagine trying to write LoTR, but Frodo doesn't have to be a hobbit, Sam coming with Frodo is entirely optional, you can tell Aragon to piss off and your decisions can influence whether Gandalf even stays behind to fight off the Balrog. Now add in gameplay, various builds, dialogue options and dozens of side quests alongside that, sound pretty damn difficult of a task to me.
The west cringes at good writing because they've been conditioned to call anything that isn't elementary school level "pretentious".
I play crpgs for the gameplay. Not the shitty open world action games but the ones where I can customize a whole party and multiclass a bunch of different classes and find weapons with cool synergies. It tickles my autism in just the right way.
give examples of bad gameplay
Deus Ex. Literally all it has going for it compared to any other stealth game or shooter is sequence breaks. Once you bring in the nonlinearity of Thief 2, Chaos Theory, or Hitman, it just becomes sad.
Tricking oneself into thinking one got a personalized version of a half-baked experience is indeed not everyone's thing, true.
i mean WRPGs in general are not your thing country music is not my thing but some people love it
If it's your thing, what makes it that?
you cant always explain it sometimes you just enjoy things why question it?
Mass effect, Witcher. Elder scrolls, Deus ex, baldurs gate,
WRPGs dont even have a lot of choices. you're still just going through a story. the genre just kinda sucks
or maybe its just not your thing?
Whatever faults WRPGs have, they are infinitely better than JRPGs.
further more and better question what would you suggest those who enjoy WRPGs play instead? what can fill that gap? and why is it no one can ever answer questions like these? if your goal is not to stop the WRPG from existing than what is your goal?
It depends on the subgenre of WRPG, but in general, every other genre.
>what is your goal?
Advancing the discourse of game design and encouraging the industry to learn from the mistakes of the testing ground we call RPGs rather than wallow in them.
what other genera does what WRPGs do but better? there is an itch and it must be scratched
what would you do?
make the combat more challenging?
make the stories better?
how would you fix the WRPG?
If that itch is limited to what
succinctly said, try making friends and getting into p&p. Otherwise, like I just said, all of them. The genre is largely characterized by superficial breadth, imitating other genres' specialties poorly. The rest of your questions are too leading and too vague to discuss, and phrased rhetorically at that.
You can stop seething at the jarpig boogeyman anytime now.
You aren't fooling anyone, no one else seethes about WRPGs more than weebs
this is why no one can discuss things with you people cause you complain while having no idea what you are talking about and lacking any ability to answer basic questions about said topic
as far as pen and paper i purposefully avoid multiplayer games why the frick would i want to go to the4 next level of that?
the WRPG will go away when it stops selling until then just accept its not you thing and dont waste your time and energy on things you dislike
Your idea of specificity is "make the stories better." Even bothering to discuss that is beyond asinine. I've already had several productive exchanges ITT, so I'd say the problem is just you.
ya cause i dont understand what you want those who enjoy WRPGs to do you clearly have an idea but nothing you have stated is viable
I'm sorry about your social anxiety and aversion to games without glued-on arithmetic, but this thread was never about trying to tell WRPG fans what to do with their time until you asked. If, regarding viability, we focus on the games themselves instead of your personal experience, I think the effectiveness of focusing on juggling one thing well before trying to juggle five has been proven by being accomplished so regularly that I question the need to even come up with examples.
So you have no arguments or examples at all? Just pretending huh?
its not social anxiety i just wont play with buttholes who want me to know the meta before i ever even touch the game
if i already know every winning strategy where iis the fun in it?
You don't need to worry about that with TTRPGs. For one, 99% of players are pure casuals, and the game master has total control over balancing the experience, potentially making metagaming impossible to begin with. I really recommend checking them out. There's a lot of resources on /tg/.
>try making friends and getting into p&p
I already do, but most of us have kids so meeting up regularly for games doesn't happen all that often and it's typically just one shots.
So you're just an obnoxious moronic weeb I take it?
these people dont really enjoy games. they are wannabe critics. like anyone needs to make a post about how most writing in vidya isn't a 10/10 masterpiece
>comparing video games to movies or books
go back wtf are you doing here
Isn't that every RPG? The genre garners critical acclaim if it has a good soundtrack, some ebin cutscenes, and one memorable line of dialogue that everybody remembers, even if the overarching context is moronic and/or incoherent. This is the formula for every vidya RPG, at least the more popular ones. I haven't delved too far into the straight D&D-tier stuff like BG3 or KOTOR, but the aforementioned is what comes to mind when I think of The Witcher 3 or Final Fantasy. They're barely video games at all, especially the latter.
you are to autistic to know what good writing is when you already struggle to be human.
Does Metal Gear Rising have a better story than Witcher 3? or how about Peaches Showtime? not sure your obsession with "wrpgs"(?) is
It's not my job to educate you moron, you you can't see how the Witcher 3 is a huge step down from Final Fantasy 7 you're not mentally qualified to have an opinion on this.
I thought you told that other anon you weren't a weeb lol. you didn't respond to my point even. calling out one genre for their stories just doesnt make any sense but now I see you have an agenda.
He's probably a moron who doesn't consider Ocarina of Time, DMC, or FF7 "Weeb" games because he attributes it to just being about e-girl catgirls, or some other moronic shit.
I think its important to note that before recently video games weren't seen as "serious" as they are now. I'd imagine an aspiring writer would always want to go into movies or tv series instead. this is changing now that gaming is bigger than movies and music combined. you can't just "write a better story" it takes talent and a whole lot of other factors when developing a game. resources are stretched more thin than your avg blockbuster.
Video game writing has gotten worse though as it’s tried to become “serious”. The writing in ratchet and clank 1 is better than pretty much any western game that’s come out in the last 10 years.
>But even these qualities which are what wrpgs are supposed to be good at are below the quality youd find on cable tv shows.
This is the case for all video games, anon. If you play video games for anything other than their gameplay then you're a fricking moron, no exceptions, and the stories and writing you'll find in your games are tailored toward morons.
Wrpgs have shit writing, sure. So do jrpgs. So do literally all other games in all other genres. The game with the absolute best story and writing will still be inferior to any moderately good book because anyone who cares or has the talent to write well or create a good story will do it in a medium designed for it. People who write for video games are the ones who weren't good enough to become novelists or screenwriters.
>b-but lots of people say that (game/genre) has good writing!
Do you really need me to explain that most people have shit taste?
Nobody plays western RPG’s for combat. We all know western devs suck at flash. People just like meme choices which makes these games feel heckin immersive. Thank god Fromsoft saved us.
>you should be playing multiplayer and tabletop games!
God, you're a pretentious homosexual. You're as insufferable as the relativist gays on the opposite end of the spectrum that insist anything they enjoy must, by definition, be good.
It's ok to enjoy things that are not objectively the highest quality, just don't be a dick about it.
Couldn't have put it better myself, your completely summed up everything wrong with WRPGs as a genre, the only thing I can say in defense after deep diving into the genre (which is what I assume you're basically doing) that not all of them are as bad as what you're describing. I haven't played Mass Effect or Dragon Age Origins, but Morrowind actually did scratch most of the itches I was hoping to scratch with the WRPG genre in terms of writing and gameplay. If you go into it with an open mind, and actually read the text the way you'd read the text of a visual novel, I think you might have a decent experience. Still haven't found anything as good as this in the genre, though purely for gameplay I'm enjoying the Wizardry series so far.
Try Kenshi
Overtime I start to care less and less about picking holes in a games plot and writing and more about the gameplay, music set-pieces and atmopshere.
WRPGs have really shitty gameplay.
Jarpigs are unironically worse with their braindead gameplay mechanics and unending cutscenes. Stories aren't even good either.
>The writing isn't good.
It's a game, dude. The point is that you're not just passively reading about the story, you're experiencing it. It's the difference between watching sports and playing sports.
I honestly play WRPG for immersion and worldbuilding. Morrowind and VTMB just itches the right spot for me.
This, and its the real advantage of a wrpg over a jrpg. You self insert in a wrpg, you play a character and experience their story in a jrpg.
Stuff like witcher blends a bit of both where the character is established, but you tweak what he says or does with your own actions so you get some self expression.
Obviously it means the writing in a wrpg is going to be mediocre, because its hard to write something captivating when you have to account for the 3 different responses a player is going to have at each junction you give them.
If you make the story set in stone with no input from the player, its easy to write and consider every line and word of dialogue to fit the overall tone and emotional impact of a story. Its why just one single character line in something like Ace Attorney can have more impact than any moment in Witcher 3, because you can carefully build to that moment through crafted interactions
I forgot to add Kenshi
The Witcher 3's combat gets tendinous after a couple hours in, but I still like the lore and monsters in the game so it gets a pass for me.
Jarpigs are infinitely worse and soulless. So let me explain why.
>Jarpigs are bad because you almost always play with predetermined characters with predetermined stats and backgrounds, this negatively affects the "role-playing" aspect of said "games".
>Most of them remove almost all player agency, resulting in less immersion.
>Jarpiggers don't like branching stories where you can choose which actions you should take or not, which opinions you should disagree with or not etc.
>Jarpigs are incredibly linear and straightforward, which means that these games have far less replayability value than an average RPG with multiple ways of solving problems and endings.
>Jarpigs are incredibly simple, so simple that even a toddler can pick it up and complete them. I mean, this shouldn't be a surprise as DQ is just an oversimplified version of Wizardry and Ultima.
>Jarpigs are incredibly formulaic, the vast majority of them have very samey themes, character archetypes, enemies and plot. They even have samey animu styles too.
All in all, I see no value in J"RPG" "games" where "role-playing" is next to non-existent.
I think you should frick off dweeb, and take your japshit with you.