Survey Says... Take The RPG Questionnaire Extraordinaire!

[CrazyBernie]

I made it through Google Docs, so here's the link!

[Rune_74]

You missed the most important option


- any as long as its good:)

[AK_Marty]

I made it through Google Docs, so here's the link!

Cool survey Bernie. I made one suggestion for a question I thought was missing.

[CrazyBernie]

Thanks for the suggestion, maybe if I get enough questions together I'll make a "Part II: The Aftermath" survey.

It's interesting to note that most of the questions are 50% or more in favor of a particular answer... It seems that most of you are a bunch of Opportunistic Stat Whoring Jack-of-all-trades who like to run away from random enemies while on tons of quests to kill all the mini-bosses in dungeons before tragically sacrificing your character's life to the final boss.

The two questions that are the most spread out are the gameplay types and treasure. Gameplay seems split between Strategy/Story and Action/Strategy/Story, while treasure is fighting it out between Scaled Random and Random w/some fixed. Not surprisingly, nobody likes Strictly Linear gameplay or Completely Random Loot.

I did leave out some other obvious (or not) questions, such as party vs solo, multiplayer, graphics, sound, cutscenes, setting, etc... maybe instead of part II I'll recompile a super-mega survey and throw it up all over the web.

[AK_Marty]

I did leave out some other obvious (or not) questions, such as party vs solo, multiplayer, graphics, sound, cutscenes, setting, etc... maybe instead of part II I'll recompile a super-mega survey and throw it up all over the web.

Sounds like fun Bernie, bring it on!

[Palog]

Nice collection of questions. I just answered.

One answer result surprised me, it's the dungeons. But well from players of Eschalon: Book I that could be expected.

For the class system, I vote for a non listed option. The system has to be designed but the base is setup in Dungeon Lords. It is based on levels, classes trees, skill points and special powers. Very interesting system but it will require new design to be managed on a longer RPG.

[Sslaxx]

I'm stuck at the first question, because I've played and enjoyed all those engine styles!

[CrazyBernie]

Well, perhaps you'll just have to "roll the dice" and see what answer results... O.o

[CrazyBernie]

As a response to the question of "What did you want to learn?"...

I've been on a bit of a creative writing kick as of late. It started with the whole "Lewis the Fighter" shenanigans that I've been posting here on the forums, and it's started to expand into the realm of the fan fiction that you can see in the General Chat. I've always wanted to get into writing but have never really had the time, and I have a terribly short attention span that often makes writer's block seem like a creative writing style of its own. Game development has also been an interest, ever since I started playing games on the PC. Problem is, that same attention span problem has pretty much prevented me from learning any sort of programming skills that would give me a chance to participate in that area as well.

This has recently spawned the idea of: why not write creatively for video games? Of course writing for games can be even more in depth than writing just a book, but it combines two aspects that might help me retain more interest. Plus, one can focus on smaller individual tasks that might make completing them a little more plausible. A character description here, a bit of lore there, it's all good practice if nothing else. I even went to the length of creating a website through Google Sites to potentially house all these particles of creative genius. I won't link the site, since it contains some as-of-yet unreleased fan fiction, as well as some other doodads I'm working on.

By now, you're probably wondering, "What the hell does all that garbage have to do with the survey?" It's actually pretty simple, and quite accidental. I've been writing stuff using Google Docs because I can directly link the docs to the web pages that I create. While not as powerful as using a full blow website creation utility, Google Sites is pretty nifty for someone who's too lazy mess around with all that extra stuff. While I was messing around with Google Docs, I pulled up the Forms creator and starting clicking around. When I saw the multiple choice options, I started creating questions, and voila!

Primarily I created it just to see what everyone else is interested in. For instance, I find it curious that nobody seems to be interested in a pure mage. Isometric strategy w/good story development is the name of the game, although that's not terribly surprising considering the forum that this survey is posted in. ^_^ Nobody wants to be an evil character, and the ending is split down the middle between happy and tragic. Of course you never know... these results could someday have an effect on my own personal projects...

In the meantime, keep those answers coming...

[AK_Marty]

Come on Bernie, give us a look at your site.

[quasimodo]

TB or not TB? That is the question! (That is the question you missed)

That is the first question I ask. If it is TB I check it out immeadiately. If it is RTwP I put it on the back burner. If it is action style RT I generally ignore it.

[Palog]

TB or not TB? That is the question! (That is the question you missed)

That is the first question I ask. If it is TB I check it out immeadiately. If it is RTwP I put it on the back burner. If it is action style RT I generally ignore it.

I'm a TB fan but your position is a bit extreme. Gothic 2 with NotR (not Gothic 3), Ultima Underworld, Dungeon Master and The Witcher are top RPG, for me at least and all are RT.
If I look at the last top 20 RPG of all time I did there's 8 TB, 7 RT and 5 RTwP.

[quasimodo]

Its all a matter of taste, of course, but if a RT game makes it on my "best of" list it has to be something special like PS:T or MotB. Even then I am forcing myself to put up with the RT combat.

[CrazyBernie]

TB or not TB? That is the question! (That is the question you missed)

That is the first question I ask. If it is TB I check it out immeadiately. If it is RTwP I put it on the back burner. If it is action style RT I generally ignore it.

This has been mention a few times during the "What'd I miss?" section of the survey. But, if you look at a particularly well crafted survey question, you'll see that I didn't miss it at all. You simply answered it without realizing!


What type of gameplay do you prefer in an RPG?

Action RPG - Chop, chop, my enemies go plop! 0%
Strategic RPG - I like to plan my enemies' demise in seven steps or less! 16%
Story Heavy - I want to be moved to tears in the first five minutes. 12%
Action RPG with Story Balance - Everyone likes a good swashbuckling hero! 16%
Strategy with Story Balance - I like to plan on being moved to tears in seven steps or less. 28%
Action, Strategy, Story Balance - I like to Plan a Swashbuckling Tale of Goulash. 28%

Action = Real-Time Hack'n Slash (Diablo and the like)
Strategy = Turn Based (Eschalon, Fallout 1&2)
Action, Strategy = Real-Time w/Pause (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Fallout 3 to an extent)
Story Heavy/Balance just denotes the importance of the storyline to the gameplay ratio.

[Palog]

I didn't read your question like that at all. Also it mixes different things, Action RPG can be quite story heavy. Or a story density can be quite high without to move you in tears after 5mn. It probably worth multiple questions.

Perhaps the questions are how is managed the fights, how is managed the exploration, how is managed the story.
For example Diablo and Divine Divinity manages the action in a similar way but the story management is totally different, the second is a true RPG that isn't the first.
Or for an Action point of View, a system like in Gothic 2 is quite different than like in Divine Divinity.

About kind of RPG for me I feel we lost a lot by not having anymore the two scales approach. I mean a large scale where you explore wide region and a more detailled scale where you explore a dungeon, a town or some other more detailled area. By having lost this approach either the large scale is just symbolic like in NWN2 and doesn't work that well, either there's just one scale and I haven't see any game using this approach that succeed to setup region of epic size.