POLL: Three most important parts of RPG-style games?

[Troy Martin]

I'm going to be doing up a sci-fi RPG/shooter and I'd like to know what you think, as computer game players, what are the three most important parts of an RPG-style game.

I play RPGs, like World of Warcraft, so I like the quests and the large "dungeon/raid" zones for more aggressive or powerful players.

What do you like?

[01000101]

I think the top three RPG games are Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fable. So I'm going to go with open-endedness for sure. =)

[pcmattman]

Definitely open-ended, large content, and multiplayer. It's pointless and gets very boring very fast if I can't play with a mate and co-operate ingame.

[Solar]

The thing that killed WoW: Items.

You could be a smart and skilled player as much as you liked; unless you were willing to grind the instances over and over again to get the leet equipment (Tx set etc.), you were hopelessly underpowered when it went up against the next instance (or PvP event, for that matter).

Some people simply don't have that kind of time, yet still could be valuable team members on a casual Saturday evening because of their tactical / communication / leadership / fighting skill. They were effectively taken out of the game the longer a server was online, until only the powergamers remained.

A side effect was that most people went raiding, raiding, raiding the same instance all over again instead of being where the "interactive" part of that multiplayer game happened.

[Combuster]

I think having a good storyline is important too. Most of the other things aren't really required to make a good game but rather as loose features used for marketing.

[quok]

I think the top three RPG games are Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fable. So I'm going to go with open-endedness for sure. =)

You, sir, have just described my love-hate relationship with the Xbox and my wife.

I love those games and have spent many many hours playing them. Hell I'm playing through Oblivion for what seems like the billionth time now.

My wife, on the other hand, hates the Xbox and has threatened to toss it in the garbage after I had one too many all-nighters playing Oblivion. My retort was to threaten to start playing WoW again.

So Oblivion isn't multi-player, but you also don't have to pay $15 a month to keep playing. There's downloadable content for it at least, and expansion packs do wonders. The thing I hate most about WoW, aside from the infinite amount of time you need to play it just to get the better items and not be insta-killed in PvP, is having to pay a monthly stipend to Blizzard AND pay an additional $50 every time they release an expansion pack. One or the other please, but not both.

[Troy Martin]

I am with you on the open-endedness thing, games like those have so many things to do and ways to play and no real end!

quok, all-nighters kill brain cells (not kitties. Still, think of the kitties.) Especially with Oblivion.

[quok]

I am with you on the open-endedness thing, games like those have so many things to do and ways to play and no real end!

quok, all-nighters kill brain cells (not kitties. Still, think of the kitties.) Especially with Oblivion.

I pull all-nighters entirely too often, especially when they're work related. Once I get really dug down in to something, I have a tendency to not give up until whatever it is has been solved, fixed, figured out, etc. It's one of my downfalls, but evidently it is also why I make The Big Bucks(tm), or so my manager at work tells me.

[inflater]

Good grief, I personally stay away from this type of games... I heard that it's very addicting but anyways I don't like these fantasy creatures... preferring to own someone with a shotgun heh...

"Combine soldiers!"...."break-out, break-out, break-wtf?" ... *ugh*..*ow!*

[Khaoticmind]

If we are talking about single player, definitively a good story. Knights of The Old Republic comes to mind. Open ending is a great plus, but, IMHO, not a must.
If its multiplayer i cannot say much, its not my kind of game really. Simply because there is no story

[AJ]

The main reason that I don't use RPG's is that I can never predict how much time I have for a computer session. For that reason, a FPS that I can dip in and out of suits me much better.

If there was a way to do this for an RPG (so that I felt I could just use it for 20-30 mins in one go without only getting half way through a mission / section), that would be good. I realise that most RPG'ers are looking more to use it for hours / days at a time, though!

Cheers,
Adam

[Craze Frog]

Immersion, immersion, immersion and immersion.

(Where: immersion = "You feel as if it is very real but know it is not.")

How you want to achieve this in your game is up to you.

[Troy Martin]

So how does a TDSRPG sound?

[inflater]

@Troy Martin: No offence, but can these RPG players (especially paid MMORPG or something like that), realize what's reality and what's a game? They usually play these games for too long and I've heard rumors about some extreme cases...

A FPS is some other style,okay, people without elementary psychohygiene (small children etc) may also "learn" from it and get theirself killed but as I've heard that the RPG games are most brainwashing... no offence again.

[Troy Martin]

@inflater: No offence taken

I've seen a glimpse of Dr. Phil yelling at some guy who got addicted to World of Warcraft, but that was a freaky extreme case. Most of us take these things in moderation and only do all-nighters once in a while. No offense, quok!