Someone should license Shadowrun for a debut on the XBox. I'm tired of hack-n-slash games that call themselves RPGs. More and more often game developers are leaning toward the kill and advance model, and rather than incorporating compelling roleplaying stories, they're building a linear story where you just kill everything.
The most recent video game that I played that called itself an RPG was Sudeki. Now, people are saying Sudeki is a bad game, and I've not yet decided if I want to dispute that, but it has elements in common to other games that people do like, such as Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, which simply stunk, in my opinion.
When was the last time you could really interact with a person in a CRPG? In Sudeki, you don't interact with people, really. You pick from a couple of menu options of things you can say to each person. People in town are friendly and can be talked to. Creatures out of town are evil and must be destroyed. There is no middle ground. Not only can't you talk to these presumably intelligent (spellcasting) creatures to get yourself out of a jam, but you can't kill off the dumb townspeople.
And these RPGs are so linear. My walk from the first town in Sudeki to the second was as linear as it gets. There is no alternate route to take through the forest to get there; I must stay on the path provided. I guess the game designers were so busy creating the textures and maps for that one path that they couldn't be bothered to create a second. Likewise, the entire game is layed out this way. The towns are simple, the paths between them are direct.
Moreover, the paths are entirely too long and the stories, although like reading a book from end to end (something that roleplaying at a table is rarely like) are hideously difficult to remember unless you spend every contiguous hour from it's beginning playing the game to its conclusion. Some companies even boast about the number of hours of gameplay. "Over 40 hours of fresh content!" A game should never be measured in how many hours of fresh scenery it provides, especially if it forces you to walk past every inch of that scenery in order to complete it, slaying everything that gets in your path.
And combat. Let me say this about combat and RPGs. It's a concept that we talk about at the gaming table a reasonable amount. My character - who grew up in Illumina and was raised by wolves and has held a magic sword since it fell out of this slain father's hands and knows the woods as if he were a tree - my character can probably kill things pretty easily. Why on Earth should this be tied to my ability to mash buttons in a precise pattern? RPGs should be turn-based, not realtime. Gah!
What we need is a better system and a new genre. I present Shadowrun.
Shadowrun takes place in a not-too-distant future. The world is run more by corporations than government. Technology is pervasive - you can jack your brain directly into the 'net, and get body modifications that make you mostly cyborg. To complicate matters, nobody is entirely certain what caused the great reawakening of magic, but it was probably the native american shamans and the Great Ghost Dance. With the return of magic to the world you'll also see races of "metahumans" such as orcs and trolls - genetic mutations in the main strain of the human genome that are awakened by the magic.
What's the point of the game? In Shadowrun you typically play the part of a Shadowrunner going on "runs", or missions. Runs are covert operations, usually funded by an anonymous "Mr. Johnson" to do the dirty work of a powerful individual or corporation. You usually have a group with particular skills that does the run together and splits the fee when the job is done. It sounds pretty simple, but it never is.
Why does this model work for video games? Well, by itself maybe it doesn't. But I propose a few changes to the typical computer RPG to go along with the change of genre.
First, dialogue is always in layered menus. I can't remember what PC game it was (maybe the Temple of Elemental Evil?) that had circular cadcading context menus. I think this could work very well for dialogue. Assemble a sentence from a series of phrase parts rather than having preconstructed phrases prepared for you. Why would you know what you should ask someone about? Sifting through the options would make this aspect a little more realistic.
You should also be able to talk to your enemies. There might be no chance that you can talk them down, but at least give you the option to say things like "these aren't the droids you're looking for" and get away with it. Wouldn't that be too cool?
Also, each run should be mostly self-contained. I suppose this is like a mission log in a way, but it's slightly different. When you start playing the game, you should be able to select how long you want to play, and the game should generate a run based on your preference. Every so often, it could throw in a two-parter, just to spice things up.
If you wanted to carry an over-arcing plot, you could sprinkle pre-desigend runs in amongst the randomly generated ones in such a way that it would seem like just another run to the player. But then something different and unique would happen. Still, the duration of the run would be determined by the length of time available for play. All of this could be set up on an in-game web site that posted potential contracts for runs.
Playing this way offers interesting options for network play because you can gather a group of the required skill types for a fixed amount of time, play, and be done. Either start over or not.
If you do things in a run that might have an effect on future missions, this would be written up in the game log. For example, if you blow up a DocWagon, they might be less inclined to show up when your 911 bracelet transmits your flatline signal. Of if you ticked off a cop, he might show up in a later run to hunt you down. Each of these is self-contained, though. For people who follow from mission to mission, it'll all fit together. And for people who don't, it will seem like just another game. The main point is that you don't need to remember that you shouldn't mess around near Lone Star headquarters, the game just smacks you to remind you when you do.
I don't know. I have been told that my CRPG model won't sell, and that's probably true. But I can't be the only one who is tired of picking up pointless powerups and has to get the whole story spoon-fed to me because it's all prewritten.
I was torn on the decision of what to do next, since I'm not particularly enthusiastic about Dave's "Monster Manual as Adventure Module" style of gameplay, yet I would like to play a character now and then. So I kept my mouth shut and committed to the role I said I would play had I to choose to play a new character: A sorcerer.