Quote: Original post by XisZ

Right, the sword is only stronger though because it is some sort of "plasma" sword (Forgive me for forgetting what it was...)

I didn't bring up halo for it's sword, though. I brought it up for the punch. It takes a lot out of you/enemies. I know you're a super weapon (MC is a spartan who has super human strength) but its not just you, its everyone in the game, and when they hit they hit a lot harder than a bullet.

I guess the "physics" of it all is that a sword is heavier, and therefore can have a larger impact if there is enough force behind it. While a bullet has A LOT of force but doesn't have a lot of weight/mass, which makes it weaker. I'm sure people don't think of this when they build their games though, Its just to add an advantage to close range fighting over longe range, since long range is..... well... long ranged,and to make it more powerful would be extremely unbalanced.

Quote: Original post by XisZ
Cliche and annoyances are two different things all together- a cliche is something like "Avin Van'Dall was a young guard in the Tokyo City military in 2029 and one day his city is destroyed by an over powering evil warlord from an ancient time and is controlled by the 12 leaders of KimKo Corp. located in New Yokohama, Suddenly Avin bumps into the warlord and discovers he has powers beyond his control and by some amazing co-incidence bumps into people at random intervals of time who have the same goal!"

^ That is what I'm tired of in most J-RPG's.

I don't think I've ever played a jrpg like that, I played one with the home village getting destroyed but thats it

Quote: Original post by XisZ
Isn't that the point of J-RPG's as well though?

Find: Find x way out of x puzzle, Find x item in x city and bring it to x character, . . it's even the first word in Final Fantasy 8's fire cave "Find Your Way" if you're wondering.

Kill: Kill insanely powerful boss. . .who dosn't decide to kill you at the beginning for no reason.
Kill x amount of enemies to level up.

Loot: Get a key to open up the Cave of Golden Mystery! Loot: Find the lost kingdoms treasure,

In most jrpg's I actually feel like im working towards completing the story, in most non-linear games the primary story is boring and the non-linear part gets boring when i stop caring about more stats. Mostly becouse of the fact nobody except me or the quest giver seems to care about it.

Motivating the player is like a dangling a carrot in front of them. Advancing the plot works as long as the story has some redeeming features, but eventually I don't care that this dungeon has a +5 long sword to replace my +4 long sword.

Quote: Original post by XisZ
and. . . many square games have many fantasy races. . . including Bunny People (Fran - Final Fantasy XII), Dog People (Khimari Ronso - Final Fantasy X, Nanaki (a.k.a. Red XIII) - Final Fantasy VII), Lizard People (Azayla - Chrono Trigger)

I don't mind different races in a fantasy setting, I just wish the game developer would just once look somewhere other than the Dnd source books for inspiration*, not every game needs orcs, dwarfs and at least three elf subtypes.
*I know dnd was mostly taken from tolkien but dnd is the reason it gets redone so much

EDIT:

Quote: Original post by XisZ
Also, if i remember, Final Fantasy also has "Kill the rat" quest. . .just instead of a rat its a rabbit. . .or some other weak character in the game.
This quest is just a way to give you a tutorial for fighting- just like how when you first start the game someone tells you to "Come here!- to move use the analog stick and push it foreward)- press A to talk to me when you are finished!

I don't literally mean I won't like a game if I have to kill a rat. What I mean is how most the gameplay in a lot of north american crpg's consists of completing quests that would be better directed to orkin or fedex than a wondering adventurer.

I really would rather play the chivalrious knight who saves the princess than some guy who does tons of delivery quests to get a promotion in his guild and kills random people along the way to sell their loots for gold.

[Edited by - Kaze on April 13, 2008 12:29:31 AM]

Clichés being clichés are only bad if that stops their enjoyment (which is often the case with story lines, but less so with gameplay mechanics).

If that wasn't the case, FPSes would be dead. And driving games. And many other genres. They may be clichéd as hell, but they are still fun.

Some cliches are cliches because they work.
A cliched plot element is not necessarily bad. Having a loved one die is a very common element because it's one of the clearest ways to give some motivation to the main character.

So some cliches are not always bad, although there are definitely cliches that we could do fewer with, like ridiculous hair.

Cliches that are cliches because they work (but we still could use some alternatives):

- The players character(s) grow as people (i.e. level up) by killing everything that moves. O.o Think about the philosophical statement that makes for a moment.

- The ending of the game is a monumental fight in which the most powerful villain, who is probably also evil incarnate, is killed. Is fighting really the only thing we can ask the player to do which is sufficiently dramatic to make an exciting ending?

- Save points - these originated from hardware limitations on size available for game storage, and developed the rather evil use of being rare islands of safety that players had to run a deadly gamut between, and do it all over again if they died in the middle. Even worse, in badly designed games where it is possible to miss something essential the player might have to revert to an earlier save (probably after consulting a walkthrough) totally breaking immersion in the game.

- Monster drops that monsters wouldn't have. Money, gear, medicine, potions... wtf is a random wolf doing carrying them around?

- Monster difficulty gradients. Yeah the level 20 monsters in the East don't eat the level 10 monsters to the West and take over their territory because... why? Also, why isn't it possible to exterminate all the monsters in the area, given that you can usually kill hundreds in a day?

- You go in people's houses, break their stuff and steal their treasure... and no one notices?

- Either you can swim in full armor, or you can't even wade across a foot-deep stream. You either can't jump at all, or can jump more than twice your own height (although, being able to jump high is definitely more fun that realistic jumping). You don't need to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom. And in any game where resurrection is possible but NPCs die tragically for plot purposes... its hard to take the story seriously when the game world is illogical.

I'm curious - you actually want a(n RPG) game where you have to go to the little boy's room...? Some things aren't included simply because they'd just be annoying. Things like having to sleep, drink, eat, etc. aren't fun.

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow
Cliches that are cliches because they work (but we still could use some alternatives):

- Either you can swim in full armor, or you can't even wade across a foot-deep stream. You either can't jump at all, or can jump more than twice your own height (although, being able to jump high is definitely more fun that realistic jumping). You don't need to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom. And in any game where resurrection is possible but NPCs die tragically for plot purposes... its hard to take the story seriously when the game world is illogical.

That death thing.... its no longer death nowadays, its unconscious or something of that like. And during those times, your character is inactive. FF series, phoenix downs wake them up. Gears of War, you are bleeding in pain (and then die for real) and such and such. I think this is good enough, don't you think?

I consider the whole eat/sleep/bathroom thing is not in there, because like the person above said, its merely an inconvenience and does not have anything to do with the plot (unless they do, which happens sometimes) and is therefore discarded.

Quote: Original post by Captain Griffen
I'm curious - you actually want a(n RPG) game where you have to go to the little boy's room...? Some things aren't included simply because they'd just be annoying. Things like having to sleep, drink, eat, etc. aren't fun.

Aren't the characters' needs to go tho the bathroom and sleep and bathe fun in the Sims? I've played several games where eating is a fun and important part of the gameplay, although it doesn't necessarily work like real eating. I'm not saying that in general RPGs need to be more realistic including bodily functions, or anything like that. I just wanted to point out that there are a lot of cliches we are normally unconscious of, and our story ideas are limited by this unconscious mental image of what RPG gameplay is like.

Some games use unconsciousness instead of death, although some explicitly tell you you are dead. Some tell you you died and reincarnate you somewhere else like a spirit healer or your last save point, with no explanation of why. But whether it's unconsciousness or death, if all games do it the same it's a cliche and we should use our imaginations to imagine alternatives. Perhaps the game is a dream world and getting killed wakes you up. Perhaps you are naturally a shapeless puddle like Odo from DS9 and getting killed makes you lose your human form temporarily. Perhaps the monster eats you and you have to wait till it craps you out rofl.

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow

Quote: Original post by Captain Griffen
I'm curious - you actually want a(n RPG) game where you have to go to the little boy's room...? Some things aren't included simply because they'd just be annoying. Things like having to sleep, drink, eat, etc. aren't fun.

Aren't the characters' needs to go tho the bathroom and sleep and bathe fun in the Sims? I've played several games where eating is a fun and important part of the gameplay, although it doesn't necessarily work like real eating. I'm not saying that in general RPGs need to be more realistic including bodily functions, or anything like that. I just wanted to point out that there are a lot of cliches we are normally unconscious of, and our story ideas are limited by this unconscious mental image of what RPG gameplay is like.

It's not in the Sims because of anything to do with clichés. It's not in the Sims due to realism. It's in the Sims because it is part of the gameplay design. It adds to the whole micromanaging their lives thing.

So really clichés are irrelevent to that example, and, as you said yourself, it is gameplay, rather than realism, that drives it.

Quote: Some games use unconsciousness instead of death, although some explicitly tell you you are dead. Some tell you you died and reincarnate you somewhere else like a spirit healer or your last save point, with no explanation of why. But whether it's unconsciousness or death, if all games do it the same it's a cliche and we should use our imaginations to imagine alternatives. Perhaps the game is a dream world and getting killed wakes you up. Perhaps you are naturally a shapeless puddle like Odo from DS9 and getting killed makes you lose your human form temporarily. Perhaps the monster eats you and you have to wait till it craps you out rofl.

All (good) games don't crash on loading. Almost all good games have main characters that aren't so ugly as to make us violently sick all the time.

We shouldn't avoid things just because they are done a lot of the time. Things being done a lot of the time and thus becoming repetitive between games may detract from gameplay - but it is gameplay and our enjoyment of the game that matters, not some absolute aversion to clichés.

And, really, there's only so far you can actually con the player into thinking that a re-explained gameplay mechanic is anything but a re-explained gameplay mechanic. For example, the much more clichéd WoW reviving is much more immersive, than, say, SS2/BioShock's 'oh look, you get revived due to quantum entanglement/random technology'. If the gameplay mechanic is clichéd, and you need it, then there isn't much you can do to dodge the bullet (besides being original gameplay mechanic wise).

Captain Griffen - Sorry but you really missed my point. What I am trying to say is: Cliches are both those things which are included in lots of games, as well as those things which are excluded from lots of games. When we brainstorm ideas for a game we should remember that we have these unconscious assumptions, and challenge them in brainstorming. In other words, cliches are the box we should strive to think outside of. Yes it may turn out that the cliche way to do it is the best way, the most fun way. Yes sometimes you can tap into your audience's sense of humor or nostalgia by deliberately using a cliche, maybe with a twist. But identifying and challenging one's unconscious assumptions is a fundamental key to originality.