CRPG

[Akka]

Dungeon Hack uses AD&D 2nd edition..It also uses randomly generated dungeon s and has a Permadeath option which deletes all your character's saves if your character is killed. Fun times.

If you want to go back to SSI D&D2E legends, then these are better examples :

 

[Arakhor]

Icewind Dale uses 2nd Edition; Icewind Dale 2 uses the early 3rd Edition.

 

[Angst]

When your only other exposure is 1st edition - where if you're a non-human in any class other than thief your levels are capped in the single digits - it seems positively revolutionary!!

And in all seriousness, for computer gaming purposes it's more than adequate. Though IIRC Icewind Dale uses 3e?

I think it uses 2E, I played it and think it still used THAC0

EEDIT: Arakhor smart

 

[Hygro]

Get four humans. Go to level 7 with first class, 8 with second, and cap out level 9 with third. Pull them from different save files so you can duplicate the best weapons and armor. Then be the gods of athAs

 

[Arakhor]

EEDIT: Arakhor smart

Well, more like "Arakhor old and have played all those games", but I'll take your first answer.

 

[gozpel]

It is incredible, ppl are talking about ANYTHING but my games?
They talk about EVERYTHING but my games.

And 14 votes in all, I think I am old. 506 views and 14 votes, yeah, I am old.

I did cast my vote already though, so sad for late players to not understand the beauty of this kind of roleplaying.

Well let's move on. To another streamlined edition of whatever, it suits gamers today, they don't want any thinking or hassle, just give them their lunch.

And they will never understand the depth of old games.

Sad.

 

[Ajidica]

And they will never understand the depth of old games.

A lot of older games have aged poorly. Concepts are badly explained and a lack of tooltips make it tricky to figure out what does what.

That isn't to say basic 2d graphics are a turnoff. One of my favorite games is Avernum: Escape from the Pit. The graphics are super basic but they are crisp with an interface that is clear and provides the player what they need with a minimum of weird unclear interactions.

 

[Hrothbern]

It is incredible, ppl are talking about ANYTHING but my games?
They talk about EVERYTHING but my games.

And 14 votes in all, I think I am old. 506 views and 14 votes, yeah, I am old.

I did cast my vote already though, so sad for late players to not understand the beauty of this kind of roleplaying.

Well let's move on. To another streamlined edition of whatever, it suits gamers today, they don't want any thinking or hassle, just give them their lunch.

And they will never understand the depth of old games.

Sad.

Every time I look at this threat, because of a new post, the counter of views goes up

Well on Baldurs Gate
I really loved the music when walking through the bush and the sounds of birds

 

[CKS]

And 14 votes in all, I think I am old. 506 views and 14 votes, yeah, I am old.And they will never understand the depth of old games.

I regret that I cannot vote in your poll, as I have never played these games. Not because they are old, but because they are too new. Maybe someday I'll play some of these games, and then I can vote.

 

[gozpel]

CKS: "but because they are too new"

What are you playing? Pacman and Space Invaders mixed in with Pong?

 

[Angst]

It is incredible, ppl are talking about ANYTHING but my games?
They talk about EVERYTHING but my games.

And 14 votes in all, I think I am old. 506 views and 14 votes, yeah, I am old.

I did cast my vote already though, so sad for late players to not understand the beauty of this kind of roleplaying.

Well let's move on. To another streamlined edition of whatever, it suits gamers today, they don't want any thinking or hassle, just give them their lunch.

And they will never understand the depth of old games.

Sad.

?
The classical CRPG were well and deep sometimes, but in other ways they were arse. The fighter class, for example, was literally something you made attack without interaction. It did well because magic users were so complicated, but it was still incredibly poor design. So was the obtuse interface. I personally liked the deep decision trees in regards to character and story choice, the swell writing and the good characters, but the combat mechanics don't hold up as well as more polished systems today, which sometimes have good writing too.

Also, noone said the classical CRPGs are bad. They're still cult products that sell well. They're plenty relevant.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Does Angband count?

 

[Angst]

I would love to try some of those systems. I just mind they're too combat oriented for me.

 

[migck]

It is incredible, ppl are talking about ANYTHING but my games?
They talk about EVERYTHING but my games.

And 14 votes in all, I think I am old. 506 views and 14 votes, yeah, I am old.

I did cast my vote already though, so sad for late players to not understand the beauty of this kind of roleplaying.

Well let's move on. To another streamlined edition of whatever, it suits gamers today, they don't want any thinking or hassle, just give them their lunch.

And they will never understand the depth of old games.

Sad.

People in this thread are talking about way older games than those you've listed (and by more varied developers too... aren't all those by ye olde Black Isle?). I'd hardly call those five in the list "old school", they were (are) hugely successful and very "mainstream" by all accounts. You could even argue they streamlined the CRPG experience of the time to reach a wider audience, which incidentally is what grumbling geeks today complain about the newer game releases.

I can't wait until Skyrim VR is considered a "cult classic" and gamers complain about 4D games getting dumber, or something like that.


On topic, my vote goes to Baldur's Gate. To me, it's all the random stuffings of the D&D world blended together into a carefully handcrafted mix. And you can spike it up with tons of weidu mods. PS:T is very good, but only if you're in the mood for a long novel (and I'm not keen on re-reading those). Haven't played the others.

 

[Birdjaguar]

It is incredible, ppl are talking about ANYTHING but my games?
They talk about EVERYTHING but my games.

And 14 votes in all, I think I am old. 506 views and 14 votes, yeah, I am old.

I did cast my vote already though, so sad for late players to not understand the beauty of this kind of roleplaying.

Well let's move on. To another streamlined edition of whatever, it suits gamers today, they don't want any thinking or hassle, just give them their lunch.

And they will never understand the depth of old games.

Sad.

I'm older than you and have been playing PC based games since the mid 1980s. I never played any of those games and your poll does not have an option for "never played them". As for RPGs, I've played Diablo 2, Skyrim and Path of Exile. Sadly, they are not on your list.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well let's move on. To another streamlined edition of whatever, it suits gamers today, they don't want any thinking or hassle, just give them their lunch.

And they will never understand the depth of old games.

Sad.

Eh, a lot of the alleged "depth" of old games amounts to a series of elaborate min-maxing exercises. I can't imagine that a majority of the audience where every particularly interested in that stuff, and accepted the crunch-heavy style of game-play as a consequence of the technological limitations of the time. Immersion and an effective reward mechanism has always been a stronger draw for players, and if that's better served by Skyrim's watered-down leveling system than by Spreadsheet Simulator 2000, that's how the industry is going to go.

I'll grant that games may have lost some of the engaged story-telling that they used to have, but that's better explained by shifts in the industry than degenerating millennial attention spans. Developers tend towards bigger projects which offer bigger rewards, but also represent a bigger investment, and so encourage safe, wide-net design philosophies. Indie developers are free of these constraints, but don't have the resources to make a sprawling narrative games, so tend to rely on a solid core mechanic or distinctive aesthetic. There's just not much space in the current industry for content-heavy but non triple-A games, and berating what you imagine audiences are like won't change that.

 

[Angst]

Skyrim's issue was less with the leveling system and more in the flat combat tho. Personally, ofc. Playing a warrior was like being a Baldur's Gate fighter in first person x) I do love Skyrim and beat most of the game as a warrior tho, so apparently it all worked out. Probably has to do with the fact that you felt powerful when you hit stuff at least. Combat at least had oomph. But yea I played (and play) Skyrim because the world is quite alive, even if people (rightfully) believe stuff like Morrowind was deeper. You really transplant into another world in a way that Diablo and Path of Exile can't make you.

 

[Akka]

I'm older than you and have been playing PC based games since the mid 1980s. I never played any of those games and your poll does not have an option for "never played them". As for RPGs, I've played Diablo 2, Skyrim and Path of Exile. Sadly, they are not on your list.

Come on, Diablo and PoE are action game, they have nothing to do with RPG except the gameplay aspect of "levels and xp".
The list is limited, but it DOES show the most legendary old-school cRPG, save for one glaring flaw (Icewind Dale instead of Fallout, the latter being one of the most iconic ever and the former being a pretty poor show of a RPG and more of just a dungeon crawling game filled with fights).

Eh, a lot of the alleged "depth" of old games amounts to a series of elaborate min-maxing exercises. I can't imagine that a majority of the audience where every particularly interested in that stuff, and accepted the crunch-heavy style of game-play as a consequence of the technological limitations of the time. Immersion and an effective reward mechanism has always been a stronger draw for players, and if that's better served by Skyrim's watered-down leveling system than by Spreadsheet Simulator 2000, that's how the industry is going to go.

Meh, the dumbing down has little actual draw. I'd explain Skyrim success rather through the brand gaining recognition after Morrowind and Oblivion, gorgeous graphics and, for the first time, decent animations, decent voice acting and a fighting system which was less awful than before. I highly doubt that all but removing spell creation really made the game more immersive, and I'm pretty sure that a Morrowind with today's graphical criteria would not have been less successful.

 

[Ajidica]

Meh, the dumbing down has little actual draw. I'd explain Skyrim success rather through the brand gaining recognition after Morrowind and Oblivion, gorgeous graphics and, for the first time, decent animations, decent voice acting and a fighting system which was less awful than before.

Skyrim was an easier game to get in to than Morrowind. With Morrowind from the start you had to understand the difference between Major, Minor, and Miscellaneous skills before you even start the game. (Let alone what stats the skills are tagged to.) A decision here in many ways determines your character for the entirety of a very long game. I have quite a few friends who love Skyrim and Witcher 3 but just can't get in to Morrowind because it is not a very friendly game to start. A boatload of decisions are thrown at you before you even know what you are doing with limited ability to change those decisions later on. Skyrim puts those decisions later on in the game.
And before you criticize that as AAA titles dumbing down for the filthy casuals, the Spiderweb Software games (epic indie rpgs) have shifted to a "Skyrim-style" leveling system where decisions are spread throughout the game rather than bunched at the beginning when the player has no idea what they want.

I highly doubt that all but removing spell creation really made the game more immersive,

I mean, if you think Fun with Spreadsheets is an immersive way of channeling the power of the Gods to incinerate your enemy, then more power to you I guess. I wasn't particularly bothered by Skyrim dropping spellcrafting. Once they dropped all the fun spell effects that were present in Morrowind (1 pt levitation on target. Take that you stupid fast moving enemy!) the Spellcrafting system served basically no point in Oblivion.

and I'm pretty sure that a Morrowind with today's graphical criteria would not have been less successful.

As brilliant as Morrowind was for the time, were it released today with simply better graphics and voice acting it wouldn't do so hot. The overwhelming majority of the Morrowind quests were dull as dirt. Some of the surrounding lore and context might be interesting, but I can only think of one or two quests that were anything beyond annoying escorts, fetch quests, or straightforward dungeon slogs. That the dungeons were so small kept one from noticing how boring they were. Characters were pretty dull too. They were interesting in the abstract, not as people. The only other open world games RPGs around at the time of Morrowinds release were, what, Gothic? Not exactly strong competition.

 

[Angst]

I only tried spellcrafting in Oblivion, and it was broken beyond belief in my opinion. It was too easy to mess with the effects to kill everything.