Talk:Computer role-playing game

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Archives
1: (Nov. 2003 - July 2006)

Contents 1 RPG vs CPRG 2 Dialogue 3 "Criticisms" have no place in NPOV 4 CRPG Combat article changes 5 Exhaustive history at Gamasutra

[edit] RPG vs CPRG

Seeing as the term rpg is used universally and cprg is a little known technical term rarely used should not this article rather refer to the genre as role playing games and simply put a reference at the top that sprg is also a technical term used for this. Also should the name of the article be changed to Role playing games (For computers). 203.59.148.128 06:51, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd support a move to Role-playing game (computer and video games). Not only would it better match the way the words are used, but it have the added benefit that would make it clearer that it's the same term used to describe two different things, rather than a subcategory. Percy Snoodle 09:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I wish we can move this to Role-playing game and move Role-playing game to Role-playing game (board game). A lot of people who grew up during the Internet era have never heard of PnP RPG. --Voidvector 02:25, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

That would be... inaccurate, to say the least. At best it would be an example of one of wikipedia's systemic biases, namely that since WP's users are all computer-savvy, they tend to promote computer versions of things over the originals. To put up a genre of computer games as "role-playing games" and leave role-playing games as some disambiguated afterthought would be a pro-CVG historical revision which I would certainly oppose to the best of my ability.

Note: This isn't meant to be criticism of Wikipedia; there's a great effort goes into countering systemic bias which I strongly support, and which I hope would argue against such a move for exactly these reasons. Percy Snoodle 10:29, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I would also oppose such a switch for reasons analogous to those described in WP:Recentism. Also, not all role playing games are board games... CRPG is not a little known technical term. It's used relatively frequently, especially in "hardcore" CRPG sites or sites that cater to a high percentage of traditional role players. There are more such sites than you may think. See http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=crpg&btnG=Google+Search for example. -- Solberg 09:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)Solberg

Thanks for pointing WP:Recentism out - it's a much better way of putting what I'm trying to say. I'm still not sure where this identification with board games comes from - I can't think of any role-playing games which are board games, at all; though I suppose there are a few starter sets available which could be seen as both. Percy Snoodle 10:24, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Well I said "not all" instead of "no" because I didn't feel like explaining (in the case an exception was found) "Dude the real point is that there aren't many RP board games." --Solberg 04:07, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Solberg

Regarding the original proposal of moving to Role-playing game (computer and video games), there is already an article for Console role-playing game. Moving to the proposed name might cause some problem. I would still support a move for 2 reasons.

1. there are significant overlap with computer and video game (RPGs are being constantly ported between the two), there is little reason to separate them.
2. in CVG context, no one calls RPG a CRPG.

--Voidvector 14:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Voidvector. To the first of your statements, I'd say that this is a fairly recent phenomenon and that previously there were not many PC to console and vice versa ports. (I can ony recall Ultima Underworld and FF7 as notable PC->Console and Console->PC ports in the past; neither sold particularly well on the other system.) Fallout (computer game), Planescape: Torment, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, Ultima VII (full feature version), Baldur's Gate (Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is not the same btw) -- none of these ever appeared on console despite being commonly regarded as among the best computer role-playing games of all time. In fact there still are not really that many ports. NWN2 and Dragon Age for instance (two major computer RPGs in development by Obsidian Entertainment and Bioware) have been confirmed PC-exclusive. To the second of your statements, many people do still refer to these separately. I take it you have not met a community of P&P on the internet or in real life before? Again, the google link is relevant. In contrast, consider this link. Notice how many of the top entries are to P&P, not digital RPG. -- Solberg 04:07, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Solberg

Regarding the google link, I would also like to point out this google link =). There are a number of other things we can compare, like Alexa or even eBay auctions. Anyway, I will leave that to you guys to figure out.

You are mostly correct about my background. I have a friend who was in a LARP community back in college; however, not participated in it myself. I see my lack of perspective cause biasness, I will abstain from giving anymore opinion. --Voidvector 05:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dialogue

Anyone want to add a new section on the various dialogue systems? Seems to be three major dialogue systems (maybe I'm forgetting something)-- noninteractive (Arx Fatalis), full dialogue tree type (BG2, PST, Fallout, etc), Wiki-type (Ultima 7 and many other games). And no, these names aren't official, I made them up because I don't know their official names. If I did, I'd have added the part myself, but I don't. There are also some notable sub-types like the one where you get a box and enter a specific word, and get back some text, like in the old Exile series. This is sort of like the Wiki-type one, except you don't get to see the choices and sort of have to guess what a character might know that is useful.

Just in case I'm not being clear, this is sort of how stuff works in the three systems:

Noninteractive:

Dialogue in only the sense that the player and another character is communicating. The player is given no choices (real or imaginary) during the conversation. There is no interaction, no player input. This is seen in Arx Fatalis and a couple others.

Full on dialogue tree:

The game developer created conversations with fixed (with respect to stats, race, etc) responses that, if chosen, can give rise to other possible new responses.

Example:

Bad Guy says: I kill you with death!!!111

Player choices:

• Um, whatever, I'm leaving now.
• Try your best!!111
• [Truth] Look, let's settle this in a civilized way.
• [Lie] Look, let's settle this in a civilized way.
• [Perception] Dude, you look drunk. How about I help you home?

Example 2: http://www.addventure.com/cgi-bin/read.pl/addventure/game2/game2.db3/page/2.html (it's deeper than this, but you get the idea)

Wiki-type:

Mr. Boring Totally Useless and Limp NPC says: Good morning. Are you here to see the Mayor?

Player choices:

• "Job"
• "Buy"
• "King"
• "Sin"
• "Mayor"

Player chooses "Mayor":

Mr. Boring says: He's right up in that shiny tower over there. Hey, he's waving to us right now.

Variation: Player can type in anything, but choices are not visible.

Anyone who adds in a dialogue section should probably also mention that dialogue trees have gained popularity over the years while noninteractive (especially) and wiki-type have both waned dramatically. -- Solberg 08:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)Solberg

I'm not totally sure this should be extensively mentioned in the article, as this is generally more applicable to adventure games than RPGs. I also somewhat disagree with the dialogue types you mentioned - yes, there is non-interactive dialogue, but then I think the other kind is known as "branching" dialogue, since it uses a tree for all possible outcomes. Another possible type (usually seen in things like dating sims, but it's been used in games like Torment, Fallout, FF VII, etc.) is where as opposed to strict branching, point values are assigned so that you gain or lose favor with certain NPCs/groups. But even so, that's arguably still just dialogue branching. As far as I know, there haven't been any significant AI developments in this area. --SevereTireDamage 22:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you disagree with. I did mention trees and branching (didn't call it branching though). Regarding point values for reputation, etc, this is not really a distinct system of dialogue, this is a consequence of dialogue (sometimes not implemented in games). In Torment, Fallout, True Love (a dating sim), and to a lesser extent FFVII, you have what I referred to as "full on dialogue trees," where there are multiple possible conversation options and actions and selecting one (eg "Give her flowers" or "Sell follower into slavery" or something) is presented and follows with certain effects-- more influence with a certain character or faction, perhaps less, etc. These extra consequences that affect rep, characters, alignment, the world and so on are extra (albeit very nice) features tacked onto a regular dialogue system. In any case I'm not sure what your objection is. Is it that you don't like the division I drew up between the wikilinkish system (used in Ultima 7, Albion, Oblivion) and the "full on dialogue tree" used in PS: T, Fallout, Arcanum, so on? There have been some significant AI developments in this area actually though I don't see why this is relevant. Probably the most famous one is [| Facade]. Try it out, I highly recommend it. It does require a fast computer though. If the issue is that a dialogue section would be key to the adventure game too or perhaps more, we can create a video game dialogue page that the adventure gamers and others can also use. -- Solberg 02:16, 12 August 2006 (UTC)Solberg

I remember Facade wouldn't even let me install it, for the very reason you mentioned, so I don't know much about it. It does sound really interesting, and if it really is doing more complex sentence parsing, than that would still be some advancement. What I'm saying basically, is that more or less all RPG and adventure dialogue is still done the same way it's been done since the beginning - pre-programmed dialogue trees with conditional variables and if/then statements. The thing is I suspect Facade is "just" a really good implentation of this, since it still has a limited number of pre-recorded computer responses and it's still parsing typed sentences like back in the 80s, just on a more complex level. Of course I could be totally wrong, since I haven't played the game nor do I know much about what went into it. I'm not sure how much can be expanded upon this topic, but I suppose some mention in this article is warranted, and maybe having a separate article isn't a bad idea. I do have an issue with the way you've described these differences - if you want to go more into it, I would definitely advise looking up sources. --SevereTireDamage 02:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm still not too sure what your objection is with how I described the dialogue. Admittedly I don't know the details or names for these systems but it's pretty much commonly agreed that there are at least two distinct systems represented by the Oblivion/Ultima/etc v.s. Fallout/PS:T/etc. I don't know the names, if I have time I'll see if I can find consensus on the internet for what to call these systems. I'll also check around to make sure nobody already invented such a page. I don't have Facade's source code nor know how it really works but my impression from several plays is that it's on a whole new level. Not really perfect, you can fool the AI but on the it's whole much more advanced than anything we see in commercial games right now. -- Solberg 05:53, 13 August 2006 (UTC)Solberg

[edit] "Criticisms" have no place in NPOV

Removed the entire "criticisms" section. If this site is to maintain even the illusion of NPOV, it does not need someone's long winded rant about how terrible it is. The fact that the article itself was not at all clearly written, and relies heavily on niche-of-a-niche terminology like GNS only serves to cements its superfluousness. This is an encyclopedia, not someone's personal soapbox, and I see nothing informative or useful in rambling negative diatribes. --72.35.146.211 09:40, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm adding the deleted section below so that interested parties can rework it, add sourcing and return salvageable material to the article. --Muchness 10:33, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to take issue wuth the sentiment of this - while it's true that criticism is NPOV, reporting of criticism is fine. So, a referenced criticisms section would be perfectly encyclopedic. However, the removed section wasn't at all referenced, so I'm not going to kick up a fuss. Percy Snoodle 13:38, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree entirely, a criticism section that reports opinions from appropriate sources is within NPOV and would be a valuable addition to this article. Some of the points raised in the deleted section are worth making, in particular the divide between traditional pen & paper and crpg gamers. --Muchness 14:09, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why the Criticism section should be removed for simply being unreferenced. By this argument almost the entire computer role-playing game article should be removed (and in theory, should if we were to conform strictly to policy.) Criticism can be of course neutral point of view if it meets the criteria in WP:NPOV. I don't see, besides the valid point about the section being unreferenced, in what other way the Criticisms section violates WP:NPOV. The text as is looks pretty dispassionate to me. In either case, I've re-added the section, if anybody has problems with specific sentences in the article, why don't they tag it with ^{[citation needed]} so we can deal with specific contentions rather than just a general "I don't like this entire part." -- Solberg 05:57, 9 October 2006 (UTC)Solberg

And removed again. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, as I understand it. If I open an encyclopedia, I expect to see facts, not opinions. Your statement is absurd. "Criticism can be of course neutral point of view"? Do you even realize how ridiculous that sounds? And I see nothing in the NPOV policy that suggests that we are somehow required to let people use the Wikipedia as a soapbox for their personal gripes. --72.35.146.211 19:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Think logically for a second. You claim was that the criticism section violated the NPOV policy which I pointed out wasn't true. Now you're saying that there is nothing in NPOV which says that "we are somehow required..[etc]." But nobody is arguing a criticism section is somehow required, but there is nothing that forbids it, which is why there's nothing wrong with it being here. There is nothing ridiculous about the idea that criticism can be neutral. See Criticisms of communism for example, which is an excellent, well maintained page that has been cleaned over and over again for NPOV. This has nothing to do with editorializing. It is simply reporting well known opinions in a neutral, fair tone. Citation is a separate matter, but totally removing the section is just out of the question. You will find plenty of other "criticism" pages and sections all over Wikipedia. -- Solberg 01:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)Solberg

And I don't approve of those sections either. Wikipedia has become riddled with a lot of this very sort of rampant editorializing, and it has no place in what is supposed to be an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is a collection of facts, not opinions. Leave the opinions to the fansites and the editorial pages. Countless articles on Wikipedia have succumbed to this kind of bizarre soapboxing, in some cases turning whole articles into nothing but someone's little rant on the evils of X subject. I'm sure you have very strong opinions re: CRPGs, but if you have such, they belong on a blog, not an encyclopedia. --72.35.146.211 05:10, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Your assumptions about me are illogical and unfounded. I don't have any "[bad] strong opinions" about CRPGs. I put a lot of work into improving this article-- not as much as a few of my local heroes (they know who they are) but I do a reasonable amount. If you're not convinced, go to the history page of this article as well as some related articles and "go back" in time and you'll see my contributions which are relatively substantial. This isn't about editorializing the evils of CRPGs or whatever. If I hated CRPGs I wouldn't have bothered to improve this article at all. But just because I may enjoy CRPGs doesn't mean they're immune to criticism. I may not agree with all the criticism but as Voltaire (well, actually Evelyn Beatrice Hall) said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It is counter-intuitive at first, but you have to realize that true NPOV does not involve censoring criticism, because a truly neutral point of view cannot be one-sided. -- Solberg 05:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)Solberg

Update: Reverted your new change. There is a lot that could be improved in that section but the removal of the paragraph about roll playing isn't one of them. @ other anon: I agree that the GNS descriptions are not too amazing but do you have alternate suggestions for designating the people who find certain elements lacking in CRPGs? We want to avoid vague selections whenever possible (i.e Some people criticize CRPGs because of ... etc instead of mentioning who those people might be) because they often devolve into weasel words. Btw, the powergaming criticism is too major to edit out. -- Solberg 03:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)Solberg

Update2: Reverted yet another change. We already have an unreferenced tag. Adding a new one is clearly redundant. You're making it very difficult to assume good faith right now. Removed the abstract/tautology/obvious/buzzword general tag because the GNS descriptions do not fit the definition of buzzword as defined in Wikipedia. The GNS terms are not idioms, they mean what they look like they mean, and they do not obscure meaning. The section is not written abstractly, and several concrete examples are provided. The section is not obvious in any sense and I do not see any abuse of tautology (rhetoric). If you see any tautologies, feel free to point them out right here. -- Solberg 05:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)Solberg

[edit] CRPG Combat article changes

Star Gem, I already told you before, (1) either put in a WP:NPOV summary of the Turn-based v.s. Real-time controversy, or no summary at all. This is not a place to spread your views on what constitutes the best combat for RPGs. Be fair to both sides even if you disagree. See "Writing for the Enemy" in WP:NPOV policy. (2) AFAIK, also, real-time with pause is a much more common term with respect to CRPGs than semi-turn-based. If you disagree, discuss it right here and maybe we can reach a compromise. (3) The arguments you list for the controversy don't make any sense i.e. Action-RPG "oxymoron" (what, RPGs involve no action?) (4) Removing the section about the Infinity Engine and the underlying implementation is absurd. It is by far the most famous RTwP or "semi-turn-based" engine out there. There's no excuse for removing actual important content in the article and replacing it with a biased and unnecessary foray into CRPG politics.

-- Solberg 21:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)Solberg

[edit] Exhaustive history at Gamasutra

Gamasutra has posted an exhaustive history of computer role playing games online, found two two parts. This would probably be very useful for fleshing out this article. -- Daveydweeb (^chat/_review!) 06:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)