How I dislike CRPGs. So much writing, and almost all of it bad. Planescape: Torment, okay, fairly unique. Disco Elysium, not my cup of tea but I can see there's something to it. But yet another generic trip down D&D memory lane, with all the same old systems, the same old setting that was never much good outside of the tabletop to begin with? The intervening CRPGs that I tried - Wasteland, Inquisitor, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder: Kingmaker to name that ones I most readily recall - were all such bad, unrewarding trash that I finished not a single one of them. The gameplay is a stupidly contrived to make a tabletop RPG run without a GM, the dialogues go on forever but if you've read one of them you've read them all and none are worth reading, why even play those games? Many play them, so I'm sure I just don't get it, but do I ever not get it!
Which is too many words to say - I hope you're having fun, but I'm not touching another CRPG until I hear some serious praises sung about both the writing and the gameplay.
Yes it does, and I wish videogame developers would acknowledge that and just trim the text in favor of focusing on the gameplay - but people play wordy games no matter how badly I think they're written, so what do I know.
Tie-in novels are generally second-rate, with few exceptions (e.g. if the novelist is already established/a name in the field). That's because (going by Star Trek fandom when the first lot of novelisations came flooding out), there's a ton of interference by the studio/rights holders about what characters you can use, what they can and can't do, if you can create OCs at all, how the world can or can't change and so on. You're not allowed contradict established canon (unless or until something is shown in an episode of the TV show or in a movie) and in general there's lines you have to stay within. That's to protect the property, of course; if the fans want another book about Erwin Skullcrusher the superhuman warrior and berserker, you can't turn Erwin into a pacifist (or if you do, it can't stick) and in part because if you have twelve different writers churning out books, to keep the characters the same they have to be bland stereotypes.
Hey, I've read the Brigador novel and four Battle Brothers stories. Somestimes you just want to read more about a setting you already spent much time in.
But for me that's interesting only if the game world was well-done to begin with.
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Notes -
How I dislike CRPGs. So much writing, and almost all of it bad. Planescape: Torment, okay, fairly unique. Disco Elysium, not my cup of tea but I can see there's something to it. But yet another generic trip down D&D memory lane, with all the same old systems, the same old setting that was never much good outside of the tabletop to begin with? The intervening CRPGs that I tried - Wasteland, Inquisitor, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder: Kingmaker to name that ones I most readily recall - were all such bad, unrewarding trash that I finished not a single one of them. The gameplay is a stupidly contrived to make a tabletop RPG run without a GM, the dialogues go on forever but if you've read one of them you've read them all and none are worth reading, why even play those games? Many play them, so I'm sure I just don't get it, but do I ever not get it!
Which is too many words to say - I hope you're having fun, but I'm not touching another CRPG until I hear some serious praises sung about both the writing and the gameplay.
If Disco Elysium and PS:T didn't impress you sufficiently, you'll be waiting for a long time. Video game writing generally sucks.
Yes it does, and I wish videogame developers would acknowledge that and just trim the text in favor of focusing on the gameplay - but people play wordy games no matter how badly I think they're written, so what do I know.
There have been thirty (30) World of Warcraft novels. None of them will ever be considered literature.
A lot of people don't need writing to be high quality to enjoy it.
Tie-in novels are generally second-rate, with few exceptions (e.g. if the novelist is already established/a name in the field). That's because (going by Star Trek fandom when the first lot of novelisations came flooding out), there's a ton of interference by the studio/rights holders about what characters you can use, what they can and can't do, if you can create OCs at all, how the world can or can't change and so on. You're not allowed contradict established canon (unless or until something is shown in an episode of the TV show or in a movie) and in general there's lines you have to stay within. That's to protect the property, of course; if the fans want another book about Erwin Skullcrusher the superhuman warrior and berserker, you can't turn Erwin into a pacifist (or if you do, it can't stick) and in part because if you have twelve different writers churning out books, to keep the characters the same they have to be bland stereotypes.
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Hey, I've read the Brigador novel and four Battle Brothers stories. Somestimes you just want to read more about a setting you already spent much time in.
But for me that's interesting only if the game world was well-done to begin with.
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