My point is that there seems to have been a lot of rubbish RPGs released recently. ie

Wizardry 8 - The combat totally blew, and sucked.
Icewind Dale 2 - Far too linear
Pools of Radiance 2 - Terrible interface and performance
Neverwinter Nights - Only 1 character, not enough depth, too "consoley"

Where are all the classics like Might and Magic 6 & 7?. Baldurs Gate 1 and 2?.

Am I looking at the past through rose tinted spectacles, or am I right?.

What do you guys think?.

The only recent RPG I've not sold again on Ebay is Might and Magic 9.

[ 03-11-2003, 04:14 AM: Message edited by: Desdicado ]

you have to do some searching but good rpgs are out thier and more are in the works. a few years ago, proably around 3 or 4, the rpg was almost declared a dead genre, diablo, bg, and a few others brought it back bigtime. theres alot of expiermentation in the genre now. freedom force, arcanum(a little old but a very different setting), divine divinity, dungeon siege(hack and slash but gorgeous game), lionheart is coming up and that's got a interesting setting, arx fatalis(actually kind of a throwback), a big part of nwn is the multiplayer, Unfourtanetly i think mmorpg are sucking up alot of the ideas and talent. while they can be enjoyable(I played some AO and a few of the others could be good) but there seems to be to many out or coming out

I like rpg's like FF more than BG-like RPG's.Maybe you should play them, and Kingdom Hearts too.

That's just your opinion. I think Wizardry 8's an excellent game, but I consider Icewind Dale mindless hack 'n' slash.
Whatever.

I agree with Desdicado on this. CRPG's aren't as good as they used too.

I also agree somewhat with Angelousss in the sense that some games have brought new live into a termanally ill genre. I do, however, not agree with experimentation going on. What's going on today is that developers are trying to incorporate certain features from other genres into RPG's. Why ? To attract more customors. Most of the developing houses are taking a big wallup in the financial departement. That made them make games geared towards to bigger market. The RPG market, in comparison to other genres, is smallish. They are trying to attract buyers from other markets to buy RPG's. That's why their is so much talk about 3D, first person and real time all the way forgetting that these 'features' can't work in RPG's. At least no all of them. I can see 3D and first person (but only if the game is a new one or the previous ones used the same, i mean i can see first person in Might and magic games but not in Fallout for example) somewhat but real time, come on.

an interesting thing thats been happening for the last couple of years is rpg elements are making thier way into other genres.

examples, warcraft 3 the heros, or dues ex w/ skill and augs, or to a lesser extent many squad based fps reward you for keeping your squad alive by giving you points to spend, i'm not sure but i think ghost recon is the best example of this.

I think Angelouss and JR have maybe have hit the nail on the head and identified something I've missed.
Maybe the marketing side of things has affcted the games production, in the past all the great games were driven by maybe one or two individuals with a big idea, ie the Ultima games and the Might and Magic games early on.
Now it's all big corporations aiming their games at 14 year old console players.

There are some role play elements creeping in to certain other games, I did enjoy Ghost Recon.

*sigh. Lands of Lore 1... now that was a great game... *sigh
As the Dutch say; Vroeguhrrr was alles beter.

Yea, I got bored of IWD, once I started. They don't have any monks! :( [img]tongue.gif[/img] And theres also no *interesting* plot

Lionheart should be good

I am waiting for this one also
http://www.troikagames.com/toee.htm