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An archived Hellgate: London feature. See the Hellgate Archives for more.

Feature: RPG Vault Designer Roundtable with Bill Roper and Erich Schaefer.
Date: October 25, 2006
Source: RPG Vault.

RPG Vault Designer Roundtable

Topic: "They don't make RPGs like they used to"

The sentiment above is one that we see quite often. More often than not, it's expressed by individuals who possess considerable experience within the genre. Many are grognards who remember with fondness the classic titles they played during the so-called golden age that came to a close in the middle part of the 1990s. For this renewal of our RPG Roundtable series, we thought it would be interesting to solicit some opinions from the developer community.

Links to the preceding segments of this feature and to the previous RPG Roundtables are available toward the bottom of this page. - Ed.

Bill Roper
CEO, Flagship Studios
Hellgate: London
There are actually very few games that are made the way they used to make them, and as with the vast majority of things in life, I find that we often look backwards through rose-colored glasses. I've pulled out some of those great old RPGs, and while they do have some great aspects, it is obvious we've come a long way in making games more engaging, easier to play and MUCH easier to navigate.

I grew up on the Bard's Tale and Wizardry series, as well as the fabled Gold Box series from SSI. Wizardry in particular was seminal in cementing my desire to create games, and I have very fond memories of it. But when I went back to play, all those things that I took for granted as just being a part of a game were honestly cumbersome and frustrating. Having to sit through one combat that literally took six minutes as I painstakingly slashed my way through four groups of 99 monsters was mind numbing. The "3D" walk through the world that was captivating at that time was warmly "old-timey" compared to how movement and combat are handled today - even when using a similar die roll-based system.

And then, there was my reacquainting with the Bard's Tale series. Having to make my own map as I progressed through the world - WOW, I forgot how much time that took! I had to try every single door to find out which ones opened, which ones were locked, which were shops, where the Adventurer's Hall was to get my levels - and then make sure I marked that all down on my graph paper. And forget it when they would use cool tricks like spinning rooms or unlit passageways.

And of course, these RPGs were all single-player experiences. In the modern era of online gaming I find I need the potential for social interaction. Now, don't get me wrong - I love single player RPGs (Oblivion is testament to that), and I am a habitual soloist in World of Warcraft. But even though I rarely go on big runs with my guild, I am in a guild, I buy and sell items, I craft for my friends, and I occasionally venture into areas too difficult for any lone adventurer. And I like that. I like the way RPGs are made today.

What I would like to see is some of the ideas that were present in those older examples be revamped, refurbished, and recast into the modern era. The dungeon crawling of Wizardry (or Diablo, for that matter), the puzzles and riddles of Bard's Tale, the innovative character creation and world of Ultima - bring me more of that, and less of RPGs that rely on licenses to be interesting. Whether standalone or MMO, I prefer the RPGs of today when they are well done. But I suppose that goes for any generation of games - perhaps the adventures of yore just had a higher consistency of greatness. Or perhaps that's those rose colored glasses kicking in again.

Erich Schaefer
Chief Creative Officer, Flagship Studios
Hellgate: London
To me, there are a lot of similarities between the RPGs of the past and those we play today. We still level up characters, explore caves and dungeons, acquire progressively more powerful equipment and map out every square of every dungeon on quarter-inch graph paper. What... you don't still map 'em out? Automap is for wimps!

Truthfully, when trying to think of the differences, one of the biggest paradigm shifts has been from party-based play to a single hero focus. With my old favorites, like the Wizardry, Bard's Tale, or Might and Magic series, you would create a complete party of six before setting foot in the world. Even in the Ultima games, you'd end up leading Iolo and Dupre into every encounter.

These days, however, we usually play as one hero per player, whether in Oblivion, World of Warcraft, or our Diablo series. Some of the reasons for this shift are the graphic and control requirements of new game engines. If you have to actually maneuver up 3D stairwells and constantly manipulate your real-time combat distances, it's just much easier to control just one avatar.

But perhaps the biggest drive toward single-avatar RPGs is a social one. In these days of multiplayer and massively multiplayer gameplay, your one hero represents "you the player" in relation to all the other people you can meet online. I think this trend positively reinforces what role-playing should be all about. In a sense, nowadays, you are playing a role in relation to other people playing their respective roles, as opposed to both playing six roles and simulating how they might interact together. One benefit is that your character is that much cooler in relation to all the others. You can make your character skill builds and fashion decisions known to the world. Your character's accomplishments can be compared to other players' characters. These social dynamics are much easier to grasp with regard to a single character; it's pretty hard for a party of six to have a personality.

On the negative side, I believe RPG development today is hampered by some severe limitations on imagination. With development budgets so high, and the need for so many specialized developers to be involved with any game assets, it's hard to let your creativity run wild. Maybe I'm looking back with rose-colored glasses, but it seems to me that in the "good old days", a free-spirited designer could create, say, a spaceship level in a fantasy RPG! Maybe its anachronistic, maybe it doesn't really help the storyline... but what the heck, it'll be fun.

These days, even though I have a pretty free hand to create any bizarre thing I want, it's really hard to maintain the spirit of crazy fun when I have to involve concept artists, level designers, coders, particle artists, storywriters, and a half-dozen other developers. They have real stuff to do! And after you explain why something would be cool and worthwhile to the tenth guy, you start to lose faith in the spaceship level. Is it worth $50,000? Is it more important than another pass on a critical quest level?... No, I guess not... So, I sometimes get nostalgic for simpler days, when one or two developers could get things done on their own.