Wc3 ORPG obsession?

[Deleted member 177737]

Hey,

I've been noticing that random ORPG's keep getting started up with the same old generic classes, systems, items, blah blah blah, etc...
So I started to wonder why is it that people always make ORPG's instead of the classic RPG/campaign that you can play by yourself.

I can't really figure out any possible reason to make orpg's over rpg's because they both require a lot of work though rpg's can allow the creator to express more of their imagination due to the lack of space restrictions on single player maps.

----ORPG----

Pro:

-Multiple players allows for a more lively environment

Con:

-Limited space to work with

----RPG----

Pro:

-Unlimited space allowing for an expansive & beautiful environment

Con:

-Solo play lacks the human feature present in ORPG's

~Just put down your thought's on the pros and cons of RPG's & ORPG's, and why you think people make more ORPG's than RPG's.


(All opinion's shown above are based on the last 2 months of looking at the map development section. The pro & con section was just one idea for each that I had in my mind.)

 

[Aeroblyctos]

Well, I prefer basic RPGs than ORPGs mostly because they have cinematics and usually better story. ORPGs are just about killing, killing and killing some more.

 

[Deleted member 157129]

It's a whole different genre either way, but are you referring to Open RPGs or Online RPGs? I believe it's popular to refer to sandbox RPGs, such as Morrowind, as Open RPGs. While an online multiplayer RPG also is called an Online RPG. They often go hand in hand though, and I guess that situation is the one you are evaluating. It's hard to make an online RPG, in WCIII, that is not sandbox/open or action/crawler - because of the limited space, both size of the map and filesize of the game. On the other hand it can be very easy to make a sandbox RPG or crawler, regardless of it being online or offline.

In the context of WCIII, here are some pros and cons for all four:

Sandbox RPG
+ Storyline is not necessary as long as there's enough to do and enough to achieve
+ Easily expanded through updates with new characters/roles, items and quests
+ Suitable for one map-file as well as multiple
- Stories often get dull if there's not much going on besides whatever you choose to do

Crawler
+ Suitable for one map-file as well as multiple
+ Really doesn't require a story at all, it's pretty much kill or be killed
+ Ideal for multiplayer
- Difficult/time-consuming to make a well-balanced and challenging game

Online RPG
+ Can be fun to play with lots of people
+ Usually offers a lot of replayability through the concept of saving characters
+ Quite easily expanded with new characters/roles, items and quests
- Offers little possibilities to make a captivating environment or story due to map-limits

Standard RPG (Offline)
+ Endless possibilities (in context) to make whatever you want it to be
+ Usually subject to more effort in the making, much more enjoyable to play in that manner
+ Easily left and picked back up again due to the possibility to save your progress
- Often suffers from limited replayability due to linear storylines

Meh, it's a bit of a mess, and it doesn't really do Offline RPGs justice because they can be sandboxes and thus eliminate the only con I listed.

 

[Pharaoh_]

ORPG's usually take some time to play with, which is the reason why people don't prefer them a lot. Having a huge map, like every ORPG should have is not a good idea: it's getting vast and hard to explore, which doesn't provide the players with an efficient and fun gameplay.

So, my question is, how do you think this can be raised? A combination of ORPG's features (lore, quests, huge grounds, loads of stuff -items/classes/monsters-) with a gameplay of a pvp (= lower duration). The best would be an online save and load system (as World of Warcraft or Lineage), but how can this be done in (let's say) Starcraft II? It's not the coding issues actually, it's the way you are going to define the goal of the game. ORPG's rarely have a certain goal, it's just pure massacre (Except for the quests' part), so, what an ORPG's goal would be to adjust its duration and retain the joy of playing with it to approximately 1 hour and a half?

Ideas?

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

I'd say "Solo play lacks the human feature" is actually a pro. Alone, you can absorb the plot, the world, at your own pace. With other people, there is always pressure to keep going and do the 'lulziest' thing (or to slow down for somebody else's favourite bit that you can't stand).

EDIT: 1337th post, bitches.

 

[Gilles]

What about co-op? Whenever I opened up old ( or started new) rpg maps, I always intended them to be multiplayer simply so I could play with friends. Most of my gaming is done with friends in fact. I find it much more enjoyable.

Couldn't stand the ORPG maps though. There were a couple that were pretty good (TKoK standing out), but almost never compared to the well made solo rpg maps.

 

[Pharaoh_]

I kind of insist on my question, how to assimilate the features of a real ORPG (e.g. World of Warcraft/ Guildwars/ Aion/ Lineage/ etc.) into a map, which is usually played for not longer than one hour and a half? RPG's nature reflects a high variety of features, which will delay the game's duration. Do you think this can be revoked in any way?

 

[Deleted member 177737]

I kind of insist on my question, how to assimilate the features of a real ORPG (e.g. World of Warcraft/ Guildwars/ Aion/ Lineage/ etc.) into a map, which is usually played for not longer than one hour and a half? RPG's nature reflects a high variety of features, which will delay the game's duration. Do you think this can be revoked in any way?

I don't think it's even possible to fit all of that into one hour and a half mainly because it took me 6 yrs just to go through all the features in WoW. But if your aiming to get the features from a smaller game (EX: Scared/Sacred2) it would be more easily done since the main storyline minus the hundred's of random quests that have nothing to do with the storyline only takes an hour to play through for someone like me.

Now if battle.net allowed for maps around 20-30mb it would probably be a lot easier, and definitely possible to put more of the features in.
(Kind of lost track of what I was typing half way through =/)

 

[Pharaoh_]

Yeah, see I agree with that, but WoW has had many updates, each of them introducing a series of new features.
Apart from that, I find it kind of impossible to implement quests other than "Kill 3 boars" in a multiplayer map, simply because searching for the quest's requirements takes up time, delaying the gameplay.

I'd really like some other views too though :]

 

[Deleted member 177737]

Oh I almost forgot this.

One of the most over-used thing's which destroy an orpg is the repetition of quests like the "kill 3 boars" that you've stated. It's hard to come up with anything more than "Kill YNumber of CreatureX", you usually just see that same type of quest hundreds of times sometimes they have different things like "Kill YNumber of CreatureX to save npcZ".
I think that is one of the main reasons an orpg & an rpg get crippled and thrown away.

It is hard to come up with something even somewhat original, but if you spend time thinking about every aspect of the world your creating you can probably come up with quest's that are more fun to play-through than the classic killing-spree.