RPGs peaked in the early 90s and it's been downhill ever since. RPGs didn’t start out story heavy. Early console RPGs like Dragon Quest or Wizardry had simple “save the world” plots or "find the special item" and dark souls style "lore" and that was more than enough. Story existed, but it was sparse due to hardware limitations, and localization constraints. The focus was gameplay, engaging with systems and fun battles, not cinematic storytelling!! not narrative! and dialogue info dumps! The shift toward long cutscenes and dense dialogue and heavy-handed storyshite really took off in the mid to late 1990s once CD storage made bigger narratives possible. And RPGS/jrpgs have never (ever) recovered ever since. This is why a true rpg fan is someone who is also a retro gamer first and foremost. Full stop, I don't care if this offends you!
Bot thread
>>3935183damn smart bot
>>3935191For you.
>>3935180I mean this is obvious. JRPGs were perfected on Super Famicom. PS1 brought improvements but also some elements of decline. PS2 was where things got truly bad.
>>3935225ok this guy gets it
We've had this same thread posted like three or four different times in the last day or two.
>>3935180Autistic boomer
Story Bad is contrarian faggotry.
>>3935225Correct
>>3935386No, just perfectly reasonable taste given that videogames are games and storyellers and their retard fans inevitably crowd out gameplay to present their shit-tier narratives.The absolute worst is dialog-driven branching storylines. HOLD EVERYTHING the player needs to make a crucial decision on the spot about this moral dilemma I copied from my philosophy 101 homework, and it will determine the course of the whole rest of the game (or not, if I don't feel like it, I'm the GM I can do whatever I want lmfao)
>>3936215Nononono, these games are masterpieces of collaborative storytelling and player agency because you get an ENDING SLIDE 60-100 hours later, bro! Imagine the work they put into these things!
>>3936353>be Larian>promise “17,000+ ending permutations” in BG3>release game>there’s like 3? Maybe 4 endings and you pick one at the end of the game, just like Deus Ex or something>there aren’t even any ending slides, maybe we can add ending slides in a patch?>make tons of money>profit
>>3936361>17,000+ ending permutationsImagine being someone who really believed that upon hearing it, it's like the 1000s of NPCs with unique routines that Cyberpunk promised or the 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets of No Man's Sky. I almost wish I had the chutzpah to con retards instead of these pesky principles.
Hate to admit it but OP is not wrong
>>3935180jrpgs and wrpgs have always been shit.the sooner you discover this the better.
>>3935180True.
>>3935180Problem is industry has basically started thinking production values can carry a game. JRPGs got impacted hard by this. What would once be a ten second dialog box exchange now has to be a choreographed cutscene with full VA, for example.
>>3936374most people are not in the know
The gameplayfags of /vrpg/ have successfully opened my eyes and redpilled me.
>>3935180I've had people beat me over the head with their game recommendations solely based on the perceived merit of their "stories", especially when it comes to the RPG genre. I've played through a sizeable number of their games. My verdict is, do not listen such people. They don't read books. They lack media literacy. None of the stories they continuously overpraise are worth your time.
>>3935386No one said story bad. It's devs making a games primary value based around the story = bad. Imagine pulling up a porno and it's a 20 minute cinematic intro and you get to the part where they have sex but it's just dry humping and a sad handjob. Modern RPGs are the video game equivalent of that. Take Xenoblade Chronicles for example, that would have been a fantastic anime. But instead the made it an anime where you need to do shitty MMO combat between cutscenes. I f I want anime I'll watch anime, but if I want to PLAY a role playing GAME then I want good GAMEPLAY. Having a story there is nice but the GAMEPLAY is the part that makes it a GAME.
>>3935386Funniest thing is these "gameplay first" dudes flocking to RPGs, one of the most story focused genres out there.
>>3936812Nobody's "flocking to RPGs".
>>3936812>Funniest thing is these "gameplay first" dudes flocking to RPGs, one of the most story focused genres out there.You know nothing of the historic origins of RPGs. They started as complex (for the time) combat/exploration simulators like Wizardry and Ultima. You had to read the manual for the basic story. The genre became bastardised into tranime storyslop in the mid to late 90s, but you wouldn't know that because you were most likely born after 2008. But at its core it is a gameplayfag genre. It's a shame the j*nnies ban anyone for mentioning the name of this boards rival forum, because some of you fags could learn from them.
>>3936837>Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, first released in 1985 for the Apple II, is the fourth in the series of Ultima role-playing video games. It is the first in the "Age of Enlightenment" trilogy, shifting the series from the hack and slash, dungeon crawl gameplay of its "Age of Darkness" predecessors towards an ethically nuanced, story-driven approach.>Garriott said he wanted to become a good storyteller and make certain the story had content, and that 90% of the games out there, including his first three Ultima games, were what he called "go kill the evil bad guy" stories. He said, "Ultima IV was the first one that had ethical overtones in it, and it also was just a better-told story."IV also had Roe Adams credited as writer. VII had Raymond Benson.
>>3936846My point still stands? Is your best rebuttal really "they experimented with story after several entries".
>>3936846Compare to Doom's development>The designer Tom Hall initially wrote a science fiction plot, but he and most of the story were removed from the project>John Carmack not only disliked the proposed story but dismissed the idea of having a story at all: "Story in a game is like story in a porn movie; it's expected to be there, but it's not that important." >Hall was upset
>>3936846>>3936853Prime cherry picking.
>>3936590Nigga what do you even play then?
>>3936837>You had to read the manual for the basic story.Um hello based department?
>>3936837based. story niggers should shot, drawn, quartered and hanged
>>3936837tranime storyslop website
>>3935180>Story existed, but it was sparse due to hardware limitations, and localization constraints. The focus was gameplay, engaging with systems and fun battles, not cinematic storytelling!! not narrative! and dialogue info dumps! No brain in that head, huh?
>>3936837Tell 'em, Grug.
>>3936812That was my ex what a waste of sperm he was omfg.Why do they even opt to exist, they are just normies touching a hobby they don't actually care about.
Dumb reactionary thread, the pinnacle of the genre are those CRPGs around the year 2000 like Planescape: Torment, Deus Ex and Morrowind, which provide rich world, deep story telling, expansive dialogue trees with meaningful choices and interesting characters who participate in moral dilemmas. The whole RPG genre is at its best when it combines a traditional RPG gameplay with Adventure style NPCs and dialogues. Tranime JRPGs are not included in the discussion!
>>3945900Sanity Doubles
>>3936804>No one said story bad.Yes they did. Re-read the thread.>Having a story there is nice but the GAMEPLAY is the part that makes it a GAME.The entire point of the genre is having both on offer, and there are plenty of alternatives if this is a matter of balance. There are animes without gameplay. There are visual novels that a hint of gameplay attached to them. On the other end of the spectrum there are roguelikes that barely have a premise attached to the dungeon crawl.>>3935386Spot on.Not every battle system is good. Not every story is good. Much of either is down to taste.
>>3935180Good bait.However.RPGs has always been story-oriented. So much always, that TTRPGs (D&D specifically) had appeared as story-focused adventure "mod" for tabletop wargames. Ever since then CRPGs are sn attempt to computerise D&D and other related games by copying both gameplay systems (easy, as most of it is just simple math and logic, which translates into programming perfectly on account of programming being math and logic itself) and actual players' interaction (super-hard, as it requires, basically, to create models of real humans with imagination and free will, so instead scripts and pre-written variations of dialogues/plotlines/decisions are used).RPGs were always about adventure - with players free will behind decisions. And adventure is by default a story - a story it will become through players' decisions (including dungeon master's own decisions, as he is also a player, who participates in the adventure - on behalf of the world). Which is why story is important, but a free will decisions are equally important. However as a videogame can only deliver the creativeness of "game master" with a huge delay and player's actions can only be "handled" in a limited amount of ways (as instant adaptation on behalf of the "world" is unavailable), pre-written story must really be good - and pre-written characters must have really memorable interactions and personalities - otherwise it will just devolve into a dungeon crawler - genre, while interesting on its own, is, nevertheless, being a very limited part of what RPG really is.
>>3935180Personally I think they peaked in the PS1 era. Yes, a lot of the bad habits of JRPGs that you mentioned got worse during that era but at the same time they started experimenting a lot more with gameplay mechanics and presentation during that era. Stuff like Valkyrie Profile, Parasite Eve and Vagrant Story, among others, were truly unique and completely unthinkable during the 16-bit era.
>>3935386>"story" game:>15-minute long cutscenes where the author's self-insert character monologues some retarded bullshit and you can't skip it or respond to it or do anything but listen.>you walk down a narrow corridor and fight a couple easy trash mobs>another 15-minute long cutscene where the author's self-insert character monologues some retarded bullshit and you can't skip it or respond to it or do anything but put a gun in your mouth and empty it to escape the stupidity.I've been done with that shit
Here's a recommendation for people who want a good story:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlKL_EpnSp8
>>3946449Instructions unclear, read "Empress Theresia" and lost all desire to read books.
>>3945900Deus ex isnt an RPG and Morrowinds status is debatable.
