The 'Explain The Appeal Of......' Thread

[Dolerman]

Can someone explain the appeal of the Witcher as a series? I'm thinking about finally taking the leap.

[Dinh AaronMk]

Can someone explain the appeal of the Witcher as a series? I'm thinking about finally taking the leap.

@Dynamo Frokane

The writing.

It's perhaps one of the most well written series in my opinion. From Geralt's dry dead-pan sarcasm to the complex interwoven world in which he inhabits. Stood up against mainstream contemporaries like the Elder Scrolls, it's an unrealized standard I feel.

[Pepperm1nts]

It also helps that the developers of The Witcher are awesome people who treat their fans well.

[Fabricant451]

Can someone explain the appeal of the Witcher as a series? I'm thinking about finally taking the leap.

@Dynamo Frokane

After two mediocre games they made one that was less mediocre but still stuffed to the brim with open world bloat and lackluster combat that gets excused because it's so MORALLY GRAY MAN.

Also there are books that are not great but found their audience with certain Polish youths at an opportune time.

[Dolerman]

<Snipped quote by Dynamo Frokane>

After two mediocre games they made one that was less mediocre but still stuffed to the brim with open world bloat and lackluster combat that gets excused because it's so MORALLY GRAY MAN.

Also there are books that are not great but found their audience with certain Polish youths at an opportune time.

@Fabricant451

Right, so whats the appeal? Why should I buy it?

[Fabricant451]

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>

Right, so whats the appeal? Why should I buy it?

@Dynamo Frokane

Because in spite of my thoughts on The Witcher 3 it's probably the best open world WRPG.

[DepressedSoviet]

Okay speaking of RPGs: Someone explain the appeal of JRPGs, please. I do not understand them at all. An 'RPG' where the most level of character customization possible is that I get to name characters that already have names. At most they're story-based action games with class-and-leveling elements, and if those are all it takes to be an RPG, then CoD is a goddamn RPG. Seriously, explain what makes people like JRPGs?

[pugbutter]

@DepressedSoviet Just because the role is pre-designed for you makes it no less a "role-playing game." I suppose that some people don't want to bother with character creation, preferring instead to jump directly into the shoes of a character which they already like (whether that fondness is measured in the personality, the profession, or simply the aesthetics of the character).

Does it also bother you that Deus Ex is about a character codenamed JC Denton, who the player can only customize, more or less, in the form of his hair color and his real, non-code name? Sure, you decide whether you're specializing in melee or small arms combat, but at the end of the day, JC has the same personality and writing behind him no matter who's actually picking up the game. He still plays the same role in the same paramilitary counterterrorist organization. Is Deus Ex a bad game because of a lack of freedom in designing the character? I don't think so. If the writing and the gameplay are good enough, and it feels cool enough to live vicariously through this character, people will still want to play the game even if they don't have much control over how the character looks or acts.

Right, so whats the appeal? Why should I buy it?

@Dynamo Frokane

The writing and storytelling in the games was always great, but people were held back from enjoying it because the combat sucked.

Now the combat sucks a lot less while the level of writing quality has stayed more or less the same. (Obviously some quests are better than others, according to personal taste.)

[Fabricant451]

Okay speaking of RPGs: Someone explain the appeal of JRPGs, please. I do not understand them at all. An 'RPG' where the most level of character customization possible is that I get to name characters that already have names. At most they're story-based action games with class-and-leveling elements, and if those are all it takes to be an RPG, then CoD is a goddamn RPG. Seriously, explain what makes people like JRPGs?

@DepressedSoviet

I assume you're talking JRPGs of the Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy variety rather than, say, the Dark Souls or the tactics side of things. RPGs are defined as a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (and/or several party members) immersed in some well-defined world. Customization is not a core aspect in a JRPG and unless one subscribes to the school of games like Wizardry or DnD games then I'm not sure why character customization is such a thing. Given that classic CRPGs had very little in the way of customization outside of a portrait and stats I'm not sure where customization became such a thing, but I suspect it has something to do with a certain popular franchise.

Early JRPGs offered party customization, Dragon Quest 3 let you pick a male or female and you recruited party members at a bar and got to choose their class and name and such - a concept they refined and made better in Dragon Quest 9 years later. Resonance of Fate doesn't let you pick your party members but it does have quite the extensive clothing and fashion system for aesthetics. The very first Final Fantasy let you pick your team of four from different classes that are RPG staples. Final Fantasy 3, before the remake anyway, also let you pick your characters professions.

Maybe it's not as robust as choosing from different races or being able to adjust their face, but JRPGs were built on the backs of concepts core to pen and paper RPGs. Even some of the more popular CRPGs succumb to being 'story based action games'. Look at, say, Knights of the Old Republic where your character's entire backstory is predetermined but you get to pick their name and stats - how is that so different from, say, Final Fantasy 7 where you get to pick your party's name and determine their stats based on equipment and materia?

JRPGs are a diverse genre that has seen games remain true to its roots (Dragon Quest, Atelier series) and experiment with the times (Final Fantasy) and pretty much everything inbetween. I can't explain what makes people like JRPGs because like the genre itself everyone likes different stuff. I know people that really love the Tales of series while I think they are trash tier JRPG games. But the best ones, the classics, offer things like fun mechanics (Chrono Trigger) or delve into themes and topics that many games don't (the Megaten franchise loves this) to varying degrees of success.

But on the subject, is The Witcher 3 less of an RPG because you can't customize Geralt? Is Mass Effect more of one because it has binary options of fake choice? Is the Elder Scrolls franchise better than JRPGs because it's a power fantasy with threadbare plots compared to the more grandiose and narrative driven Japanese counterparts? JRPGs often get a bad rep because of various reasons, ranging from its character design (because if there's one thing weebs love it's trying to pretend they aren't weebs) or their often overly melodramatic and bad story telling, but that's true of almost any genre. There's good, great, and bad in any media and just because, say, Hyperdimension Neptunia is a garbage franchise for garbage people doesn't mean that, say, Persona is made worse by being under the JRPG umbrella.

JRPGs are not for everyone and they are still very much a niche market outside of Japan. The best JRPGs offer exactly why RPGs have been offering since its inception: a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (and/or several party members) immersed in some well-defined world.

Maybe you don't like JRPGs, and that's fine. But there's more to an RPG than character customization.

[Dinh AaronMk]

The writing and storytelling in the games was always great, but people were held back from enjoying it because the combat sucked.

Now the combat sucks a lot less while the level of writing quality has stayed more or less the same. (Obviously some quests are better than others, according to personal taste.)

@pugbutter

To be honest I didn't have a problem with Witcher 1's combat. Though I came to miss the able to spam the group attack style and stun locking some enemies into a exploitative oblivion.

Still, doesn't remove from the fact the writing is great, as you and I have said.



👌👌

[Chrononaut]

Okay speaking of RPGs: Someone explain the appeal of JRPGs, please. I do not understand them at all. An 'RPG' where the most level of character customization possible is that I get to name characters that already have names. At most they're story-based action games with class-and-leveling elements, and if those are all it takes to be an RPG, then CoD is a goddamn RPG. Seriously, explain what makes people like JRPGs?

@DepressedSoviet

To answer your question with another question, what makes Western Rpgs roleplaying games? Most limit your choices, wheres in a "real" rpg, like DnD, you literally have unlimited choices you can make, not ones they just program in for you. You might have a DM like that, but it's much less restricted generally and the plot can literally leave his control if you're clever enough.

Roleplaying just means you "play a role". Acting is a form of roleplaying, even though you don't make any choices.

The main appeal of JRPGS are the stories and the simplistic gameplay, namely. Before we had the technology to make the sprawling expanses we have today, tech was a lot more limited. You did have some titles like Fire Emblem which combined tactics with a leveling system, but these were few and far between and much harder to make.

I honestly don't like console rpgs though, I think the only time rpgs were ever good was Planescape, Fallout 1 and 2, and Baldurs gate era + the recent release of new CRPG games like Torment: Tides of Numenera, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, and Wasteland 2. Dark Souls feels much more like a Metroidvania game and The Witcher series has always felt more action rpg than "typical" rpg.

Also what @Fabricant451 said.

[DepressedSoviet]

I guess I should have clarified that I don't consider most 'Western' RPG games to be true RPGs either. In my eyes, an RPG is where you create a completely original character, and experience a story that can be altered or guided by the actions you take as your character. I guess my biggest gripe about most games that claim to be RPGs in general is lack of actual influence I have over many of the "Player Characters" they use, or the overall story and its progression, but that may just boil down to limitations of Video Games as a whole.

[Dolerman]

@DepressedSoviet@Chrononaut@pugbutter

'Geek as an identity' Starter Pack

[DepressedSoviet]

'Geek as an identity' Starter Pack

@Dynamo Frokane

Excuse you: I sexually identify as a Sovereign-class Starfleet Cruiser!

[Chrononaut]

@DepressedSoviet@Chrononaut@pugbutter

'Geek as an identity' Starter Pack

@Dynamo Frokane

WELL, ACTUALLY, I'M MORE OF A CULTURE NERD, MA LADY.

[tanderbolt]

<Snipped quote by DepressedSoviet>

To answer your question with another question, what makes Western Rpgs roleplaying games? Most limit your choices, wheres in a "real" rpg, like DnD, you literally have unlimited choices you can make, not ones they just program in for you. You might have a DM like that, but it's much less restricted generally and the plot can literally leave his control if you're clever enough.

Roleplaying just means you "play a role". Acting is a form of roleplaying, even though you don't make any choices.

The main appeal of JRPGS are the stories and the simplistic gameplay, namely. Before we had the technology to make the sprawling expanses we have today, tech was a lot more limited. You did have some titles like Fire Emblem which combined tactics with a leveling system, but these were few and far between and much harder to make.

I honestly don't like console rpgs though, I think the only time rpgs were ever good was Planescape, Fallout 1 and 2, and Baldurs gate era + the recent release of new CRPG games like Torment: Tides of Numenera, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, and Wasteland 2. Dark Souls feels much more like a Metroidvania game and The Witcher series has always felt more action rpg than "typical" rpg.

Also what @Fabricant451 said.

@Chrononaut

It's funny how most of the RPGs you listed as the good ones were made by the same general group of people (Black Isle, which became Obsidian and Troika). With Fallout the developers said in interviews that it was their aim to recreate the depth of the tabletop experience as closely as possible. I think that's always been an undercurrent, but the early computers lacked the technology to do much except bring in the dungeon crawling and stat based combat aspect of tabletops RPGs, which were fun enough that they became the defining features of the genre.

[Utrax]

*Pulls this thread from the abyss.* Hello!

Can someone explain the appeal of 'Vaporwave' in both a musical and aesthetic standpoint?

The music tends to be incredibly... generic. Regular music sampling in other genres have already covered the themes pretty well and, honestly, it seems to be just another name for lo-fi techno.
On top of that, the aesthetic pictures/pallets/choice of ~whatever~ has already been covered by lo-fi techno as well.
Kind of like how Disco and other genres came, had their aesthetics, then left eventually.
My main point of confusion is how it seems to be the same thing as something that already exists. It doesn't seem innovative at all.

Is this just another generation's version of "cool music/art exclusive and created by us" type of thing?
Am I right or am I missing something here?
Why do people like it so much if it's so been there done that? Why are there so many people listening to it?

[Dinh AaronMk]

*Pulls this thread from the abyss.* Hello!

Can someone explain the appeal of 'Vaporwave' in both a musical and aesthetic standpoint?

The music tends to be incredibly... generic. Regular music sampling in other genres have already covered the themes pretty well and, honestly, it seems to be just another name for lo-fi techno.
On top of that, the aesthetic pictures/pallets/choice of ~whatever~ has already been covered by lo-fi techno as well.
Kind of like how Disco and other genres came, had their aesthetics, then left eventually.
My main point of confusion is how it seems to be the same thing as something that already exists. It doesn't seem innovative at all.

Is this just another generation's version of "cool music/art exclusive and created by us" type of thing?
Am I right or am I missing something here?
Why do people like it so much if it's so been there done that? Why are there so many people listening to it?

@Utrax

Frankly I only ever hear people talk about Vaporwave from an mostly memetic standpoint. Hence the whole A E S T H E T I C meme surrounding it.

Otherwise I suppose you could get away as describing it as being basically chillstep or whatever since the two genres sound synonymous to me. Then the only people you're going to piss off are the enthusiasists who'll no doubt go into great detail why you're WRONG when in actuality when you parse the components of even pop music you basically find out everything from jazz to blues, to rock to metal functionally operates on the same chord structure and progression so in technical details everything in the wide view is the same genre (it's why the term 'pop' exists), but differentiates in thematic presentation or topic.

It's something only music enthusiasts really bother with, or psuedo-types. Real ones get nerdy over orchestral arrangement. :^)

[Dolerman]

@Utrax Vaporware and chillstep make very boring people feel very interesting to people they dont even like.

[mickilennial]

Is this just another generation's version of "cool music/art exclusive and created by us" type of thing?
Am I right or am I missing something here?
Why do people like it so much if it's so been there done that? Why are there so many people listening to it?

@Utrax

No, not really. It was relevant for about a year and outside of a few pieces it really hasn’t had any lasting power. More reminiscent of the internet culture that birthed it, it had its five seconds of fame before becoming irrelevant. The type of people who enjoyed vaporwave have moved on to making Kanye West sound collage projects. No, I’m not joking.