Hey Cody (a Deus Ex thread) (Gaming)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, November 15, 2016, 01:53 (2937 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Obviously they're very different games, but, in an ideal world, it seems like key parts of this doc could be applied to a cool version of Destiny that went even just a little beyond "shoot that thing in the face". Of course, Destiny is a shooter, but it is also at least somewhat an RPG (or it wants to be somewhat of an RPG)--it feels like maybe Bungie could learn something about creative solutions to problems . . . but again, I'm not smart enough to analyze that like some others might be able to.

Destiny is NOT even close to being an RPG. It is an MMO with strong FPS elements. There's no RPG in it at all. Improving stats and choosing skills does not make Destiny an RPG.

This is complicated, because we've been using these misnomers for so long. An MMO is not an RPG. A JRPG is not an RPG. A TRPG is not an RPG. Why these include RPG in the genre description is beyond me.

An RPG is this: a game where you assume the role of a character, and you create or guide a story based on your choices within the game's rule system. In terms of a video game, if you can't change the outcome of the story, it's not an RPG. If you can't freely make a wide variety of choices corresponding to various character actions, then it's not an RPG. Destiny allows you to do neither. There are very few RPGs these days. There are very few RPGs in all of video game history.

All of Destiny's classes play virtually the same, so there really isn't a lot of leeway here. The differences are very minor. In Deus Ex they can be huge, not just in terms of how the challenges are tackled, but in terms of flow of the narrative based on your choices in and out of combat. Even if they switch genres for Destiny 2 and ditch the MMO, Destiny is still going to be stuck in FPS land and primarily be an action game.

If you want to get all theoretical, I think RPG is going to end up being the default genre for games with narratives in the far future. We are already sort of at the point where the aesthetics of games are such that the mechanics end up in the uncanny valley, because the aesthetics suggest a world that doesn't exist mechanically. The more real and detailed things look, the more real and detailed we'd expect them to behave. This means allowing our characters to interact in a wider variety of ways than offered in the action games of today. Both the physical interactions, and the social / emotional. The same thing with the story - with a richer set of possible interactions would itself create another uncanny valley if the world didn't change convincingly as a result.

TL;DR Deus Ex was ahead of its time, yet the industry has learned nothing from its greatness. Even with all its flaws nobody has topped it.