Have MMOs ruined the RPG?

I have been playing Final Fantasy III (VI jp) lately, and at the same time leveling a character in Rift, and I realized something.

MMOs have completly ruined RPGs.

Nowadays an rpg is sinonomous with grinding and quest hubs, whereas "back in the day" they were the best available form of narrative.

I'm hard pressed to think of a game that doesn't ask me to "Kill 10 X" or "Collect 5 Y" even outside of MMos - Dragon Age 2 is a good example, I never felt as if I wasn't on a fetch quest, just visiting a spot so I could return to my quest giver.

This makes me sad, while I enjoy MMOs (as I am currently paying a subscription for one) I'm not into the idea of making every game a series of tasks in lue of a cohesive story.

Can anyone suggest a modern RPG that hasnt't been "MMO"-isized, Resonance of Fate was good, a little too jRpg I thought.

Im sorry but how can you seriously mention a jrpg and then mention mmo grind...Random battles is all I am going to say, thats surprise grind right there and in a game where the story is most important its insanely annoying to grind so you can beat that one boss so you can advance the story forward. Anyways mmos usually have a pretty good story, but its not spoonfed like in single player rpgs. Then again Ive lost all hope in Jrpgs as role playing games at all so I am very biased.

jRPGs have had grinding for as long as I can remember. What about Demon's Souls? Mass Effect? Elder Scrolls?

Grinding is a JRPG thing. I can still remember the old days of gringding Dragon Warrior 3 for the GBC. Good times - sorta.

Golden Sun was a great RPG for the game boy color and I don't think I minded grinding there either. I'm not sure why.The graphics during battle were superb imo. But it does get boring. Once I got used to the games I found myself pounding the A button with one hand and eating doritos with the other one. I was barely paying attention to the actual game anymore and that sort of puts me off of JRPGs sometimes - that and random battles.

Anyway, RPGs seem to be in a state of crysis (accidental pun! :P) and it seems to me that publishers are forcing developers to complete games in horribly small time frames to make money. Now that works fine with crap like Madden since there is nothing humanly possible to change anyway... But with RPGs the shortcomings are easily noticed.

I can't see MMOs doing anything but outshining RPGs right now. Personally I'd never pay for one but you get an experience in an MMO which RPGs are failing to produce. Slowly RPGs are taking away options from the player in some stupid crusade to make the games easier. (I thought that was what the EASY mode was for...) And in doing so the games become less than an RPG and more into some action-packed thingy... You have little or no freedom to do anything and many times you only have the illusion of choice and freedom because in actuality the road has already been paved and you just need to walk down that linear path - the same one that everyone else is going down....

Creativity seems to be no longer rewarded and that's my biggest issue. Video games need to be complicated because with complications comes more options and freedoms to solve these complications in many ways. That's what made RPGS great! You could build your very own hero and try all sorts of combinations to make them great. And they were your own setups. Now in RPGs you can expect to have the exact same boring character everyone else has because you have no say in your character's development any way. You may as well just watch a movie or read a book because you know how it all ends, and it's not like you could change when and how it happens anyway.

First off, an optional sub-genre isn't going to ruin an entire parent genre.

Second, MMO means it's multiplayer. RPGs are generally singleplayer. These are two major differences you should realise before choosing which game you want to buy.

Most MMO games are focussed on the player having the freedom to explore a very large world and explore the story and characters at theirs and their friend's pace.

GoldenSun was a great RPG for the game boy color

anthonycg

Golden Sun was on the GBC? Really? You might want to look again as the first 2 were on the GBA on no version was ever made for the GBC :P

On topic: All RPGs "back in the day" (as TC puts it) were mostley grinding anyway, then again most JRPGs still are about grinding just so you can get to a high enuff level to beat the next boss. Also I can't think of many JRPGs that have quest hubs either, you just progress through the game and the next "quest" is started after you finish the last. It may be diffrent for WRPGs I don't really know as I've only played a hand full of them.

If anything, they've kept the role-playing genre alive and well (aside from indie RPG's and the odd mainstream one like New Vegas). They might not have the progression of some of the older ones, but they do something no singleplayer RPG ever could do: create a massive social community and give the player a means of actually creating their own personality in a game world.

i remember the times when i used to read a whole lot of lines in my rpgs before they even had voice, and yet they were a lot better than modern rpgs. I think not only mmos are ruining rpgs, but the gaming community, rpg crowd is a small one and companies find a lot more lucrative and easy to produce other games, just look at cod, same engine, same mindless gameplay, same terrible campaign and people still buy their mediocre recicled product every year. Look at dragon age 2, they went for the action over the tactical gameplay, in a few years rpgs will be almost nonexistant, i used to play so many rpgs every year when i was a kid, now its like one or two decent rpgs every year.

Most Western RPGs avoid grinding for the most part.muthsera666

seriously? do you really think so? try to play fo3 without going through the hordes of mutants, or try playing me1 and do all side quests, and tell yourself going to the same wh every side quest is different because you have a mission to do.

i remember the times when i used to read a whole lot of lines in my rpgs before they even had voice, and yet they were a lot better than modern rpgs. I think not only mmos are ruining rpgs, but the gaming community, rpg crowd is a small one and companies find a lot more lucrative and easy to produce other games, just look at cod, same engine, same mindless gameplay, same terrible campaign and people still buy their mediocre recicled product every year. Look at dragon age 2, they went for the action over the tactical gameplay, in a few years rpgs will be almost nonexistant, i used to play so many rpgs every year when i was a kid, now its like one or two decent rpgs every year.

[QUOTE="muthsera666"]Most Western RPGs avoid grinding for the most part.Krelian-co

seriously? do you really think so? try to play fo3 without going through the hordes of mutants, or try playing me1 and do all side quests, and tell yourself going to the same wh every side quest is different because you have a mission to do.

I agree that modern games have kinda ruined traditional RPG's but at the same time they have spawned new varieties of RPG's like shooter rpgs (Borderlands for example). I'll use the Final Fantasy series as a good example. The early games did have quite a bit of grinding and I think that was done to extend the length of the game and it wasnt really a problem. FF 7,8, and 9 were fairly long games where you did not have to grind, they had great gameplay, and story lines. When more modern systems came around like the PS2 is when RPG's started to take hits. FF 10 wasnt too bad as far as grinding goes but it lacked an interesting storyline. FF 12 was a long, boring grind fest that made it hard to get trhough the story. I think Square Enix tried to change this by making FF 13 linear which was a step in the right direction but a severely flawed game.

Until developers get their "groove" back with traditional RPG's we may have to live with hybrid RPG's and MMO's.

I'm going to have to disagree, I don't enjoy extremely linear RPGs. Besides, some old games had the perfect Idea of how to mix a storyline with an open and customizable RPG (Dragon Quest VI, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, Pokemon).

[QUOTE="muthsera666"]Most Western RPGs avoid grinding for the most part.Krelian-co

seriously? do you really think so? try to play fo3 without going through the hordes of mutants, or try playing me1 and do all side quests, and tell yourself going to the same wh every side quest is different because you have a mission to do.

i remember the times when i used to read a whole lot of lines in my rpgs before they even had voice, and yet they were a lot better than modern rpgs. I think not only mmos are ruining rpgs, but the gaming community, rpg crowd is a small one and companies find a lot more lucrative and easy to produce other games, just look at cod, same engine, same mindless gameplay, same terrible campaign and people still buy their mediocre recicled product every year. Look at dragon age 2, they went for the action over the tactical gameplay, in a few years rpgs will be almost nonexistant, i used to play so many rpgs every year when i was a kid, now its like one or two decent rpgs every year.

[QUOTE="muthsera666"]Most Western RPGs avoid grinding for the most part.Krelian-co

seriously? do you really think so? try to play fo3 without going through the hordes of mutants, or try playing me1 and do all side quests, and tell yourself going to the same wh every side quest is different because you have a mission to do.

[QUOTE="anthonycg"]

GoldenSun was a great RPG for the game boy color

knightseason

Golden Sun was on the GBC? Really? You might want to look again as the first 2 were on the GBA on no version was ever made for the GBC :P

That's why it looked all prettyful... :lol:

[QUOTE="Krelian-co"]

i remember the times when i used to read a whole lot of lines in my rpgs before they even had voice, and yet they were a lot better than modern rpgs. I think not only mmos are ruining rpgs, but the gaming community, rpg crowd is a small one and companies find a lot more lucrative and easy to produce other games, just look at cod, same engine, same mindless gameplay, same terrible campaign and people still buy their mediocre recicled product every year. Look at dragon age 2, they went for the action over the tactical gameplay, in a few years rpgs will be almost nonexistant, i used to play so many rpgs every year when i was a kid, now its like one or two decent rpgs every year.

[QUOTE="muthsera666"]Most Western RPGs avoid grinding for the most part.spookykid143

seriously? do you really think so? try to play fo3 without going through the hordes of mutants, or try playing me1 and do all side quests, and tell yourself going to the same wh every side quest is different because you have a mission to do.

That's not grinding and i think in mass effect enemies level with you.

Yes they do. The problem in ME2 is that there's a level cap and when you start a new game the eniemies are at the same high level you're on but you don't have any of the upgrades you had before you started a new game. It can make some of the missions on insanity seem impossible.

It seems that in RPG's in general, grinding is a means to an end. You grind so you can fight that tough optional boss to get that final rare item. In an MMO, grinding is kind of the end in itself. You do quests, get loot, do more quests, get better loot, join a new clan/guild, do more quests, get even better loot, etc... until you reach the level cap, then you either keep going or start over.

It seems that in RPG's in general, grinding is a means to an end. You grind so you can fight that tough optional boss to get that final rare item.

IWAOlympus

Yes and no.

Money has ruined gaming in general. When one successful game comes out in a genre, then other developers try to copy that game, and the original developer sticks with the core of that game and releases expansions with hardly any changes. It's business I guess. Why change something drastically from what made you so successful in the first place. Because of this the gaming industry seems to be copies of just one successful game, with completely new and different games almost non-existant now. I guess you can also blame modern technology for this as well. Back in the day you had to make your own games from scratch. There was no reverse engineering of anything so you could just copy a games mechanics and put it out there as your own without legal reprocussions. Everybodys game had their own stuff and copying something successful was too much time/money to do. Now adays alot of games are actually made with the same kernal as most others cause companies actually sell their success to other developers. Sucks I know but this is the way of the future I guess.

No, the formula of watching a ton of cutscenes with voice acting and running down linear, hall-like environments ruined the rpg; or the JRPG to be more specific.

There seems to be a general disconnect when it comes to the definition of grinding.

To me grinding is having to repetively battle foes to raise your stats/gear/money in order to progress.

Simply encountering enemies in your journey isn't grinding.

Grinding is the act of progression through repetition rather than moving through the story line.

In the early Final Fantasy games, it was more than possible to simply fight the enemies you encountered and go completly through the game, not get stuck 5 levels too low to defeat a boss, so you run around in a circle getting into random encounters.

And by the way, if Mass Effect reminds you of a 20 year-old game like Quest for Glory, then that is not "progressive".Jag85

Oh, I was only talking about the protagonist's characteristics and decisions being carried over throughout the series via the import character option. A cool concept that I haven't seen since QFG. Otherwise, not many similarities at all.TentacleMayor

FFXII was very progressive, but its obvious MMO influence only ended up making the game a grindfest, so it's pretty obvious why FFXIII has no MMO influence. Square Enix obviously made FFXIII very linear in order to completely eliminate grinding altogether, which is both a good thing (no grinding) and a bad thing (too linear for an RPG). And by the way, if Mass Effect reminds you of a 20 year-old game like Quest for Glory, then that is not "progressive".Jag85

Anyway, I don't really think that MMO style gameplay has ruined RPGs, but perhaps that is part of it. All in all, most RPGs these days feel (and I hate to use this term, it's cliched in itself) "dumbed down" compared to what they were ten or fifteen years ago. Nowhere is this more apparent than looking at what Bioware produces now, compared to classics like BG2. So why has this happened? It's money, dear boy. Games are so expensive to make anymore that the companies need every game to be a runaway hit. They end up simplifying gameplay concepts in hopes of attracting a wider audience, but they don't realize how self-defeating this is. The mainstream gamer is never going to be interested in a fantasy RPG, no matter how arcade like you make the gameplay. In the end, all you're doing is alienating the core audience of RPG fans, the people who buy and have bought your products for years. I don't know where the downward spiral ends, frankly. I worry that the days of the classic RPG are numbered.

[QUOTE="Jag85"] FFXII was very progressive, but its obvious MMO influence only ended up making the game a grindfest, so it's pretty obvious why FFXIII has no MMO influence. Square Enix obviously made FFXIII very linear in order to completely eliminate grinding altogether, which is both a good thing (no grinding) and a bad thing (too linear for an RPG). And by the way, if Mass Effect reminds you of a 20 year-old game like Quest for Glory, then that is not "progressive".drochnathair

Anyway, I don't really think that MMO style gameplay has ruined RPGs, but perhaps that is part of it. All in all, most RPGs these days feel (and I hate to use this term, it's cliched in itself) "dumbed down" compared to what they were ten or fifteen years ago. Nowhere is this more apparent than looking at what Bioware produces now, compared to classics like BG2. So why has this happened? It's money, dear boy. Games are so expensive to make anymore that the companies need every game to be a runaway hit. They end up simplifying gameplay concepts in hopes of attracting a wider audience, but they don't realize how self-defeating this is. The mainstream gamer is never going to be interested in a fantasy RPG, no matter how arcade like you make the gameplay. In the end, all you're doing is alienating the core audience of RPG fans, the people who buy and have bought your products for years. I don't know where the downward spiral ends, frankly. I worry that the days of the classic RPG are numbered.

Yes, MMO ruined tabletop rpg. Look at 4th edition D&D.....

Has mmo ruined crpg? No. Budget / audience preference / profit have larger influence on crpgs than mmorpg.

Yes, MMO ruined tabletop rpg. Look at 4th edition D&D.....

ghostofzabis