Are RPG's getting worse every 5 years? (List your top 10 RPG's ever to help!)

1. Fallout
2. Knights of the Old Republic 2
3. Fallout 2
4. Planescape: Torment
5. Suikoden 2

1995-1999 was the last great age of RPGs, since it was the last time you had a lot of titles that featured interactive narratives.

Somewhere in the mix between Final Fantasy 7, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Knights, and Oblivion, people forgot what roleplaying is all about. (or, as a consequence of them, never knew it)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

It's not a matter of having a good story, it's having an interactive one. Hentai games have more roleplaying elements than RPGs.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

People have been playing books for decades. They're called choose your own adventure. This is what RPGs are lacking. Choice.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Quote:

The biggest problem I see in RPGs these days is that designers seem to think they have to decide between a linear storyline with no room for player input, or a game that allows for player choice but contains a barebones storyline at best.

Non-linear gameworlds don't necessarily have to possess bareboned storylines, so much as they can possess several independant and intertwining storylines to be activated as the player comes across them.

Take Fallout for instance. Yes, there was an overriding need to find the water chip, but you don't have to settle the dispute between Killian and Gizmo in order to find it. Yet, how the player settles things in Junktown affects his overall reputation in the gameworld, how NPCs react to him, and how the scenario for Junktown plays out in the endgame due to the player character's actions.

The difference in game design is whether or not designers want the quest to be the focus of the game, or if they want the experience to be the focus. Not to say, of course, that focusing on an overarching narrative is necessarily a bad thing, but if the player has no input in its outcome, then what's the point of even playing? What's the point in making a game?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?