Adventure Forums - View Single Post - Adventure Games are Dead?

imisssunwell · 05-03-2009, 08:39 AM

@Find Therma, I used to play adventures (I still do but to a much lesser extent) when the genre was at its zenith. Adventure games then weren't content to low crafting & halting evolution. Tech-wise they used the best that was available, when the CD-rom came (before that we had only floppy disks), adventure developers immediately took advantage of the new technology and created more impressive worlds+added voice acting, they used point & click instead of /open in an era without MS-Windows & web, back then it was one of the best ways to interact with the game world. They had VGA graphics and took advantage of SoundBlaster cards. If these things sound pretty standard today, it wasn't necessarily so back then.

King's Quest V had made use of actors in order to make the movements of characters look realistic, a big step forward for it's time (seeing the movement of some characters today I wonder if this is done for some "modern" adventures). They were top notch, produced by companies that were willing to build something innovative (for that time!), use intelligent scripts, humor (intelligent humor that is) and take the risk to create a big budged game (iirc KQ5 cost 1 million dollars, huge amount for the development costs of the era). Games that were interactive with the user, had interactive worlds, in some cases even had multi-linearity and very importantly had a very high level of craft for that time. No wonder these times are considered by many people as the Golden Era, TLDR: the games were really top quality, while current ones don't take similar steps towards the advancement of visuals/audio quality, interaction with the user, interactivity of the game world, replay value, most new AGs seem content to stay repetitive & have a low craft quality.

Regarding rpgs, nomalsoul said many nice points so I'll just mention the points I would like to add, imho puzzles are a means to interact with the game world/storyline if this is done in a dull way and the storyline is not calibrated, I'd rather play an rpg game. It is also a matter of overall craft, how dynamic is the world? how good are the graphics? does the game have replay value? I don't think that the rpg market is full of boring narrative, sure there would be low-quality games like in every genre, but the good ones really shine and that is what AG are missing lately, good games which shine. I find most actions you have to do in rpgs relevant to the storyline or at least to the physical space surrounding your character and I like that.

Also regarding thought, I'll have to disagree, take for example high end WoW raiding, in order to min/max your performance and find optimal rotations/best in slot gear people even had to code simulators or do some math, people also try to find the economic impact of a future patch and take advantage of the market changes to make virtual gold, I find this sort of mini puzzles interesting. In AG you never reach that level to tackle a problem, it's always a finite puzzle that, in the worst case be brute forced, given enough patience.

Regarding drakenshard, I haven't bought the game but I can think of quite a few rpg games that are very good, KotOR, Mask of the Betrayer, Mass Effect, Oblivion and WoW from WRPGS, FF games from JRPGs also, while strictly speaking, Zelda games are not RPG, they provide a similar experience & are very good value for money.

05-03-2009, 08:39 AM	#39
imisssunwell Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 118	@Find Therma, I used to play adventures (I still do but to a much lesser extent) when the genre was at its zenith. Adventure games then weren't content to low crafting & halting evolution. Tech-wise they used the best that was available, when the CD-rom came (before that we had only floppy disks), adventure developers immediately took advantage of the new technology and created more impressive worlds+added voice acting, they used point & click instead of /open in an era without MS-Windows & web, back then it was one of the best ways to interact with the game world. They had VGA graphics and took advantage of SoundBlaster cards. If these things sound pretty standard today, it wasn't necessarily so back then. King's Quest V had made use of actors in order to make the movements of characters look realistic, a big step forward for it's time (seeing the movement of some characters today I wonder if this is done for some "modern" adventures). They were top notch, produced by companies that were willing to build something innovative (for that time!), use intelligent scripts, humor (intelligent humor that is) and take the risk to create a big budged game (iirc KQ5 cost 1 million dollars, huge amount for the development costs of the era). Games that were interactive with the user, had interactive worlds, in some cases even had multi-linearity and very importantly had a very high level of craft for that time. No wonder these times are considered by many people as the Golden Era, TLDR: the games were really top quality, while current ones don't take similar steps towards the advancement of visuals/audio quality, interaction with the user, interactivity of the game world, replay value, most new AGs seem content to stay repetitive & have a low craft quality. Regarding rpgs, nomalsoul said many nice points so I'll just mention the points I would like to add, imho puzzles are a means to interact with the game world/storyline if this is done in a dull way and the storyline is not calibrated, I'd rather play an rpg game. It is also a matter of overall craft, how dynamic is the world? how good are the graphics? does the game have replay value? I don't think that the rpg market is full of boring narrative, sure there would be low-quality games like in every genre, but the good ones really shine and that is what AG are missing lately, good games which shine. I find most actions you have to do in rpgs relevant to the storyline or at least to the physical space surrounding your character and I like that. Also regarding thought, I'll have to disagree, take for example high end WoW raiding, in order to min/max your performance and find optimal rotations/best in slot gear people even had to code simulators or do some math, people also try to find the economic impact of a future patch and take advantage of the market changes to make virtual gold, I find this sort of mini puzzles interesting. In AG you never reach that level to tackle a problem, it's always a finite puzzle that, in the worst case be brute forced, given enough patience. Regarding drakenshard, I haven't bought the game but I can think of quite a few rpg games that are very good, KotOR, Mask of the Betrayer, Mass Effect, Oblivion and WoW from WRPGS, FF games from JRPGs also, while strictly speaking, Zelda games are not RPG, they provide a similar experience & are very good value for money.