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        <h1><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b><i><a href="../../index.html">loonygames</a><br>
          <font size="1">a <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com">blue's news</a> 
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<p>&nbsp;</p>Vol. 
                2, Issue 5<br>
                December 8, 1999 </b>
             <br>
              
                <b><i>Beaker's 
                  Bent:</i></b></p>
                <b><i> 
                  Yet More on the Future of RPGs</i></b></p>
                by 
                  Rich &quot;Beaker&quot; 
                  Wyckoff</p>
              
              

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               This 
                Thanksgiving, I made the mistake of being excited for<b> Ultima 
                IX</b>. Regular readers of this site probably remember that I 
                consider the <b>Ultima</b> series my favorite RPGs ever, and that 
                I got into the industry because of <b>Ultima Underworld</b>. However 
                <b>Ultima VIII</b> had done so much to ruin the series forever 
                for me, and I had heard so many bad things about <b>U9</b>'s development 
                and design history, that I didn't really think Origin had any 
                chance of reclaiming the golden years of <b>Ultima</b>. In fact, 
                I was prepared for the worst: an <b>Ultima</b> even worse than 
                <b>Ultima VIII</b>.</p>
              </p>
              Nonetheless, 
                I knew I was going to buy <b>U9</b>. And then the demo came out, 
                and even though it had a truly <b>Trespasser</b>-equivalent framerate 
                coupled with even worse graphics and physics, I was amazed to 
                see that it seemed to have a design that was going to work for 
                a 3D realtime RPG. This design wasn't particularly original: in 
                fact it basically looked like Origin had set out to clone the 
                core gameplay of <b>Zelda 64</b>. <b>Zelda 64</b>'s puzzles consist 
                of things like shooting specific targets with specific types of 
                arrows, using your hammer to bash or move blocks, or sometimes 
                even tasks as simple in concept as defeating all the enemies in 
                the room.<b> Zelda 64</b>'s basic combat system also turned out 
                to be an incredibly good metaphor for 3D 3rd person games, too 
                - players could press the trigger button to lock on to an enemy, 
                and while in lock on mode, the player's controls were remapped 
                to circle the targeted enemy. Fairly complicated dodging and attacks 
                were finally possible in 3D without a complicated interface.</p>
              </p>
              Clearly, 
                <b>U9</b>'s designers were trying to make their game feel like 
                a deeper version of <b>Zelda</b> with the puzzles in the demo 
                which consisted of shooting targets with arrows or igniting torches 
                to open doors. I enjoyed <b>Zelda</b> so much it seemed from the 
                demo like <b>U9 </b>would be guaranteed to be fun - of course, 
                I also thought that the speed, bugginess and general lack of polish 
                of the demo would be corrected before ship. I swear, this is the 
                last time I'll believe that any developers are capable of correcting 
                the most obvious flaws in their products. But anyway, the point 
                of this column is not to list all the many things about <b>Ultima 
                IX</b>, which make it the second worst <b>Ultima</b> after <b>U8</b>. 
                Instead, I'm interested in what the game might signify for the 
                future of RPGs in general.</p>
              </p>
              The most 
                important thing about <b>U9</b> is that the engine, while certainly 
                greatly flawed, is an attempt at making a true 3D environment 
                for an RPG. As I've gone on about at great lengths in a previous 
                column, today's &quot;revolutionary&quot; RPG, <b>Baldur's Gate</b>, 
                has a laughably non-interactive engine. Players direct their little 
                characters across areas that are essentially giant paintings, 
                with annoying loads between them. The world is sprinkled with 
                what look like piles of items and barrels and crates to dig through, 
                but interaction with these interesting-looking things is limited: 
                ugly highlights appear on almost randomly selected parts of the 
                background, bluntly revealing that the game content is layered 
                on top of a static image. </p>
              </p>
              <br> 
            &nbsp; 
            Certain 
              RPG purists don't understand that RPGs on computers have little 
              relation beyond underlying mechanics to RPGs that are played with 
              pencil and paper, and they argue that computer RPGs have to allow 
              you to &quot;role-play a character.&quot; This, frankly, is immaterial. 
              True role-playing requires intelligent, adaptable feedback to the 
              player's decisions that right now can only be provided by a human 
              game master. Having a conversation tree like in <b>Fallout</b> that 
              has different options depending on whether you are &quot;good&quot; 
              or &quot;bad&quot; does not constitute role-playing. If anything, 
              games like <b>Fallout</b> that try to simulate the tabletop role-playing 
              experience just bore casual players with too much only-subtly-different 
              and often buggy conversation trees, distracting them from the core 
              gameplay of exploring and fighting and building up their characters' 
              powers.</p>
            </p>
            The reason 
              that I feel <b>U9</b> is such an important example for RPGs is a 
              simple one: in real-time 3D, the <b>Zelda 64 </b>gameplay paradigm 
              they have borrowed works far better than the archaic &quot;hit points/numerical 
              attributes/turn-based combat&quot; gameplay of older, less technologically 
              advanced titles. This may hard to swallow for certain hardcore computer 
              RPG players, and there's good reason beyond just the <b>AD&amp;D</b> 
              license for why the practically retro design of <b>Baldur's Gate</b> 
              has done well. However, even <b>BG</b> struggles with its basically 
              realtime nature, and its combats usually feel out of the player's 
              control in a way that older RPGs never did. What is the practical 
              difference between a 16 and a 17 dex? You can see it when you watch 
              each to-hit roll, but in a furious real-time battle, it just doesn't 
              matter. The more that RPG engines move into the technological future, 
              the less applicable these old-school RPG designs are going to be. 
              In 3D, you can't get away with having only two in a stack of twenty 
              crates openable. They all have to open/be smashable or they all 
              have to be indestructible, otherwise the world will seem arbitrary 
              and inconsistent. <b>U9</b> at its heart takes many steps in that 
              direction. It is merely the poor implementation of their basic ideas, 
              which keeps <b>U9</b> from being the best RPG ever.</p>
            </p>
            New RPGs 
              cannot hope to implement the same tired old designs on top of modern 
              engines. It would be feasible to use a real-time 3D engine to implement 
              a completely turn-based old-school RPG, and some developers will 
              no doubt attempt this, but this really is a waste of advanced technology 
              and doesn't really bring the general design of computer games forward 
              in any way. <b>Ultima IX</b> is a faltering step towards the future 
              of RPGs, and as much as I can barely endure playing it, I can&#146;t 
              help but get excited about games in the future that will follow 
              in its footsteps.</p>
            </p>
            </p>
            
            <i>- Richard 
              &#147;Beaker&#148; Wyckoff is a game designer, not a level designer, 
              damnit!</i></p>
            
            <br> 
              &nbsp; 
             
            Now compare 
              <b>BG</b> to the recent<b> Final Fantasy</b> games. These also take 
              place on top of static backgrounds, yet take advantage of this fact 
              by rendering them from all sorts of interesting angles as adventure 
              games do. <b>FF</b>'s environments are also largely non-interactive, 
              with the occasional button to play with or computer console to operate. 
              Neither <b>BG</b> nor <b>FF</b> have much of what I'd call a world 
              simulation at all. <b>Zelda</b> and <b>Ultima IX</b>, on the other 
              hand, are worlds largely filled with items which operate under learnable 
              and relatively consistent rules, rather than being mere immovable 
              window dressing. A burning torch in <b>Zelda</b> can be used to 
              ignite a stick, which can then light other torches. In <b>Ultima</b>, 
              the douse spell can put out fires, clearing a path through dangerous 
              areas. Rocks can be picked up and hurled at enemies in <b>Zelda</b>, 
              or piled into stacks to help reach high ledges in <b>Ultima</b>.</p>
            </p>
            Creating 
              an interactive world is just one way to go about making an RPG, 
              but I happen to think it is the most important direction for RPGs 
              to go in, and despite the many problems with <b>U9</b>, I really 
              feel it signifies the future of the genre. Origin may be abandoning 
              single player games altogether, and based on their results with 
              <b>Ultima IX</b>, that's probably a very good idea. However, better 
              developers will continue to make single player-focused RPGs, and 
              for these developers, <b>Ultima IX</b> is the most important recent 
              RPG to study, for reasons I'll explore now.</p>
            </p>
            There are 
              certainly other good games from the last year which are related 
              to the RPG genre. One of these is<b> System Shock 2</b>, but as 
              a first person, combat-focused game, I would argue that <b>Shock</b> 
              really represents a sophisticated kind of shooter rather than an 
              RPG. Likewise, the <b>Final Fantasy</b> series are coming to increasingly 
              favor their story development and cut scenes over their basic RPG 
              elements. With each new release, Square seems to be giving the player 
              less ability to customize their characters, which I feel is a very 
              important element in anything RPG-like. Finally, <b>Baldur's Gate</b>, 
              for all the hype, turns out to be less flexible than the great party-based 
              RPGs of the past, saddled with non player-created party members 
              and an annoying combat engine that manages to be neither a good 
              real time system nor a good phased system.</p>
            </p>
            None of 
              these games really represent anything new for RPGs. The <b>Final 
              Fantasy</b> series has been going for years, just adding better 
              presentation and depth to the basic formula of highly plotted adventure/RPG, 
              and <b>Baldur's Gate</b> is basically a throwback to what RPGs were 
              like in the early 90s. What is the basic concept of an RPG on the 
              computer, anyway? To me, they are all about continually exploring 
              new and amazing places while increasing your characters' ability 
              to survive the ever-increasing hardships they will face. Computer 
              RPGs need to have character growth in terms of the basic game system, 
              and they definitely need to have combat that manages to stay interesting 
              throughout the game, and in my opinion they need to have plot. I 
              think if you take away either the game system character growth or 
              the combat but keep the plot, you have an adventure game, and if 
              you take away the plot but keep the other elements, you have a strategy 
              game. There's nothing wrong with either of these kinds of games, 
              but they aren't RPGs.</p>
            </p>
            </p>
              <br><p>&nbsp;</p> 
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<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Print CGI is 
  &copy; 2000 <a href="http://www.square8.com">Square Eight</a>. Used with permission. 
  Article is &copy; 2000 its original author. All other content is &copy; 2000 
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