What Makes An RPG?

[Hexadecimal]

What Makes An RPG?

Recently at this week's GDC, 3 of the gods of RPG's were gathered to discuss what makes an RPG, and speak their thoughts on the future of the genre. The panel consisted of Peter Molyneux of Lionhead Studios, Hironobu Sakaguchi of Mistwalker, and Ray Muzyka of the almighty Bioware.

Here's some of what they had to say on the subject:

Muyzka broke down the BioWare approach to RPGs as a game resting on four activity pillars: great stories and characters, a sense of exploration and awe, addictive character progression, and combat that evokes feelings like fear--all of which feed into one another

"For me, it comes back to this one simple phrase," Molyneux said. "'Role-playing game.' You are playing a role. What I want to experiment with is to say, 'What should it feel like to be a hero? To start off as nothing and end up being a hero? That is an emotional journey you're going through, and that's my real focus."

Sakaguchi said what he is trying to accomplish with his RPGs is "to tell a great storyline and [offer] characters and a world view that players can relate to." He also brought up a sense of exploration and accomplishment as key factors for RPGs

All of them agreed that they feel it is important for the player to feel an emotional connection with the character, and an interest in customizable characters, though Sakaguchi expressed no interest in utilizing this in his own games.
Molyneux felt that branching storylines could lead people to second guess their own choices, while Muzyka felt that would lead to greater replayability of the game.
They also discussed the possiblility of setting an RPG in today's world. Muzyka and Sakaguchi were against the idea, citing the idea that people play RPG's to escape the mundane, while Molyneux referenced his elusive project Dmitri which he said will do that very thing...

For more info, see here:

GDC 07: 360 developers on the future of RPGs - Xbox 360 News at GameSpot

I'm interested in what everyone else thinks on the subject... what do you think makes an RPG?

 

[Darg]

Re: What Makes An RPG?

Well said by all of them, I'd say! I love rpgs that have style and a certain element of originality with an added mix of player creativity. In rpgs, you should be who you want to be outside of what is normally just your average life. If you want to be the magical wizard crazy with the big stick, then you can be. If you want to be the bulky warrior with a massive sword, then go ahead. That's what's in an rpg- freedom to do what you want to do and to play the role of whoever you want as well. There's my two cents.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Re: What Makes An RPG?

Muzyka really knows what he is talking about as the KotOR games have some of the most replayabilty & emotional involvement than any games i have played and branching storylines are just great and well done. Gives you a real reason to play games over again & experience a different game from the first time and i think Molyneux should take note of this. Molyneux says he likes to concentrate on 'Emotional Journeys' more than branching storylines but surely with branching storylines your choices have more of an effect on the game and you might actually think more about what you are saying becuase of this and then comes the emotion. I know the KotOR games made me second guess myself and were so much more emotionally involving than Fable ever was.

 

[Darg]

Re: What Makes An RPG?

While that may be true, I believe he was going to implement many things into Fable 2 having to do with getting 'emotionally involved', also with the whole having children and unconditional love deal going on. I imagine there could be some pretty strong emotions involved. What if you came home from an adventure to find out that Lucien (bad dude, but I'm sure everyone knows that) had his minions kill everyone in your family and set fire to your house. IF it will be as emotionally involving as Peter seems to state, then it should be to the point of you having a deep hatred for the evil side of things... unless you're also evil and already kill your family.

 

[Hexadecimal]

Re: What Makes An RPG?

While having other characters that you care about can help to forge an attatchment to events, I never felt as connected to the character I was playing because my moral outlook changed nothing in the world around me... I hope this changes with Fable 2... If I am supposed to be someone who will change the world, then the world should end up differently if I save it or conquer it... but at the end of Fable, Albion remained unchanged...
whereas in a game like KotOR, in the end you go on to either save or damn the galaxy... planets which you have visited will have different rulers and political structures based on your actions... that's having an impact... that made me feel emotional connection...

 

[Dark Drakan]

Re: What Makes An RPG?

While having other characters that you care about can help to forge an attatchment to events, I never felt as connected to the character I was playing because my moral outlook changed nothing in the world around me... I hope this changes with Fable 2... If I am supposed to be someone who will change the world, then the world should end up differently if I save it or conquer it... but at the end of Fable, Albion remained unchanged...
whereas in a game like KotOR, in the end you go on to either save or damn the galaxy... planets which you have visited will have different rulers and political structures based on your actions... that's having an impact... that made me feel emotional connection...

Always putting things in a better way than me :lol:

Yeah thats pretty much what i was thinking straight out of my head, your actions in Fable didnt have any affect really and didnt change anything significant whether you were good or evil except how you did things and way you looked. If your actions really DID have a consequence as they said over and over i might have thought more about them but as my actions didnt change anything really i didnt really care.

 

[Albion Knight]

Re: What Makes An RPG?

Watch the video Here


Peter Molyneux

I lost my first girlfriend to Wizardry