Personally, even specifically for RPGs I lean a bit towards good combat mechanics. For example, I'm more likely to take a second look at a RPG that advertizes lots of diverse races, classes, skills, spells, and items, rather than one that advertizes a cool and interesting background, storyline, characters, and/or gameworld. I can apply a little personal imagination where needed if the combat mechanics are good and the storyline is lacking. If the combat mechanics/options suck, though, (or worse, if they are awkward to use and/or buggy) it takes a VERY good story to keep me interested enough to slough through the combat.

aj142: Have you ever played Deus Ex? That has RPG elements but is played like a first person shooter, if you haven't you should try it it's a fantastic game!

Quite frankly, at this point in time, there is no way a CRPG can hold a candle to PnP RPG. There is no CRPG of which I am aware that can give me my role-playing fix. In the BG series, at least 2/3 of the time, there is no dialog option I would really use. As Dace said in some other thread, the game does not allow him to hire people to do his bidding. My first time through, the non-linearity of Chapter 2 was a welcome change from Chateau Irenicus, but was gravely disappointed when from Chapter 3 on, I was herded along, not really a participant, more of an actor following a script.

So anyway, in the current state of the art, I would much rather have a robust, tactically rich combat system and get my role-playing fix Thursday night with my friends.

Darkstone, a Diablo clone, tried, but not straight out of the box. They scripted several different quests, and randomly determined which you got at the beginning of the game, and were hoping to get a massive number of user mods, like happened with Doom and Quake. I think I had to play a dozen or so times to get all the quests out of the box. But they failed to follow through with the editor in a timely fashion, and the game was released just when a handful of other very good games were, so it never really became popular. By the time their very clunky editor was released, pretty much all the people with modding inclinations had already moved on.

[EDIT]
Just so you don't get the wrong impression, Darkstone IS NOT a good RPG. The intent was to provide a good scripting and level editor, then get the userbase to produce the good RPG mods. The stuff you get out of the box is more on the order of the errand boy quests in BG.
[/EDIT]

[ 03-25-2003, 04:41 PM: Message edited by: Thorfinn ]

I think the Elder Scrolls (e.g. Morrowind, I believe) games are a FPS type RPG. I only played the first one (Daggerfall? or was that 2nd - not sure - didn't like it 'cause I like party games), but I think that may be exactly what you're looking for. In any case, despite the fact that I'm not sure of the exact name of the games, look for any game that starts with "The Elder Scrolls: xxxxx"

You run around in a Wolfenstein FPS environment & use your mouse to "hack" & "slash" (different movements = different attacks) with your sword, but you can also cast spells with keyboard commands, IIRC.

- Imrahil

im kinda leaning towards storyline, but you have to have a balance. gotta have good char lvling and stuff like that, along with good fighting system, with a kickass storyline [img]smile.gif[/img] (bg anyone?)

<font color="red">Xero</font>

Well, anymore, people don't lean towards storylines or battlesystems, they're usually more concerned on game graphics. I've played a lot of games before that have graphics that aren't, well, so great. One of the best RPG games I've ever played is called Grandia, it's graphics date back about 3-5 years ago, but it has one hell of a storyline and a battlesystem to make up for it. Same goes for FF7, Legend of Dragoon, and FF Tactics (thought some people don't seem to think so).

You know what game I really liked? Dark Cloud. Pretty much no storyline, but the levelling system was so addictive! There was tonnes of variation, too!

Thorfinn: Agreed, so I'm not comparing CRPG to P&P RPG... not even in the same realm. That's not even apples to oranges, that's apples to Shakespeare.

Imrahil: The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall is actually a perfect example of a game that could have been a game so good I'd still be playing it, with superb storyline and combat mechanics. It had a HUGE gameworld with dozens (maybe hundreds) of cities, vast storyline, tons of side quests, and guilds and factions you could join and/or oppose that provided all sorts of useful services. It also had a fantastic variety of classes, items, spells, skills, and even systems that would let you create your own classes AND spells, and all this with first-person 3-D immersive graphics that would let you look up, down, and around at any angle, run, jump, and even swim. And this was in 1997!

Unfortunately, it's also probably the buggiest game I've ever played (especially related to the 3-D graphics, movement, and combat), and the bugs simply were too much for me, so not only did I never finish it, I can't even say I got that far into it. Many patches were released, but it never got to the point that I considered playable. Hence I know almost nothing of the full storyline, but what I glimpsed certainly hinted at something pretty vast and complex... and despite the fact that I couldn't get far into it, I probably created over a dozen characters and game starts.

Gangrell: So in light of the above, by far my biggest requirement for a CRPG over storyline AND combat mechanics is that the game be bug-free... or, more realistically, that the bugs that do exist in the game are minimal and low impact enough that they don't detract from it. I'd prefer state-of the art immersive (or 3rd person / overhead) 3D graphics with richly detailed environments, good sound and voice-acting, etc... but I'll still play with pixelated low-res 2D (Wizardry, Bards Tale) or even text-based if the game is good enough. As long as the bugs are ironed out and the game and environment is presented clearly, either way is fine.

Just curious ~ does anyone here think you might have a clear "definition" of what makes an RPG different than an action game? I mean, technically, why is a game like Xenosaga officially a 'different type' of game than a game like Resident Evil? Is it simply the fact that the battle-system in one is turn-based and the other is real time? Or is there more to it than that?

I understand, Klutz. My point was since role-playing can't be done properly on a computer, you should at least have a great combat system, something that can be.