The Drunken Lizard Pub

RPG Vault invited Basilisk Games to participate in their feature called RPG Roundtable where we got to throw our opinion into the mix as to why we think RPGs aren't made today like they used to be. Our response was posted today in Part 2. A very special thanks goes out to RPG Vault editor Richard 'Jonric' Aihoshi for the invite. It's an honor to have our opinion included with so many veteran RPG developers.

BasiliskWrangler wrote:RPG Vault invited Basilisk Games to participate in their feature called RPG Roundtable where we got to throw our opinion into the mix as to why we think RPGs aren't made today like they used to be. Our response was posted today in Part 2.

Interesting. I read Part 1 yesterday and now Part 2, and was a bit discouraged with the number of replies that said "RPG's aren't losing anything; they're getting better, and if you think otherwise, you're just getting old." In rhetorical terms, this is called "poisoning the well."

It's true that I'm getting old, but it's also true that I'm looking for something that today's games don't provide. Thanks for addressing that both in your comments and in your game.

It seems to me that one unspoken assumption of many developers (which may indeed be true for those who grew up on console games) is that games are getting better because they increasingly rely on the player's skills and reflexes, incorporating more elements of the first-person shooter (or the third-person beat 'em up). Personally, having no reflexes or skills (well, no hand-eye coordination skills) and being prone to motion sickness from 1st person 3D, I would rather have a game that relies on my brain, or on the skills that my character is supposed to have, according to his stats.

I won't even get into how I think a lot of 3D art is ugly, lest I be stoned.

Fleisch wrote:Interesting. I read Part 1 yesterday and now Part 2, and was a bit discouraged with the number of replies that said "RPG's aren't losing anything; they're getting better, and if you think otherwise, you're just getting old." In rhetorical terms, this is called "poisoning the well."

That sounds a lot like the argument for crappy television programming:
People watch television, therefore producers must be generating content people want to watch.

Looks like a bad case of denial to me. I guess it really comes down to development cost--you just can't make a game for a niche market anymore. Seems to me that Eschalon just might be well-positioned to take advantage of a huge hole in the market by catering a bit to us old-skool types.