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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6352873" data-attributes="member: 4937">It happened with Mass Effect as well.   Mass Effect I was probably my favorite cRPG ever, though even then it wasn't hard enough and lacked some of the adventure gaming elements that I'd expect in an RPG.  Mass Effect II brought us reduced character building, and more limited open world where combat no longer could occur in any situation but only in carefully designated combat playing fields where simple terrain features dictated the flow of play, and to support that a good deal less judicious and interesting use of cut scenes.  (Mass Effect II's first cut scene is by far its most powerful, but its also probably the most anti-game cut scene in video game history.  Compare the use of cut scene as in game elaboration of consequence and reward for success in ME1.  ME2 uses the cut scene to abrogate player choice and involvement.)There is definitely a move in cRPGs toward:a) No meaningful failure.  That is no failure ever attacks the player's primary agenda.  True failure sucks so find some way to redefine limited victory as failure.b) No consequences to choices.  All roads lead to the same place, they just differ in the provided color.c) Linearity.d) Conversations reduced to combat style mechanical obstacles.e) Character skill as opposed to player skill.f) No exploration play.  g) No withholding of reward.No system as yet is explicitly advocating all of that, there is a definite trend away from 'old school' at least on some fronts (retro gaming being the obvious and obviously reactionary exception).   Pretty much every modern system is guilty of encouraging at least some of that.  Though there are definite exceptions when comparing the trend in PnP versus cRPGs, conversation isn't any more of a lost art now in PnP's than it ever was because actual RP is so system independent in a PnP (whereas it's highly dependent on what the developer enables in a cRPG).  One driving force in cRPGs toward simpler games is rising cost of production for larger games strongly encourages multiplatform development, which drives interface design to the lowest common denominator.  You know longer could create a mainstream cRPG that expected you to type text into the interface, for example, which strongly limits that sort of exploratory conversation and interaction associated with very old school cRPGs.  Ironically, we are now at the point where we have the capabilities to avoid the worst elements text as interface (hunting for the exact right wording).   PnP's so far as I can tell don't have that problem, since paper and dice are still relatively cheap and imagination is free.</blockquote>

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