Ajaarg, lucid SA fag, wrote:

The problem is abstract versus direct representation. Traditional CRPGs and pen and paper RPGs represent things abstractly because they have to. How much graphical representation can an ASCII game have? As graphics improve, the need for such abstract representation decreases and degrades the game. Look at NWN: the engine has the capability of directly representing every single swing, blow, dodge, block, and parry, but doesn't because it is held back by the abstractions of the D20 system.

The case is even worse in a first person game where every action you take is *DIRECTLY* represented in front of you. When you shoot something, you don't tell your 'avatar' to do it from a 3rd person isometric perspective; you're there right behind the gun controlling the aim yourself. SS2 used abstract methods to display this: higher skill levels would somehow mean more damage with a gun, and no skill at all meant you couldn't even pick up the gun. Deus ex walked the line a little more carefully, letting you use a gun untrained but not well (shaky zoom on a sniper rifle, for example).

Furthermore, the more abstract the system (like SS2's) the farther from representing reality it is. See the whole "unable to use an unskilled weapon without cybermodules" thing again. In both SS2 and DX2's case, the progression is much different from "do this activity, gain skill in said activity." You could concievably use the sniper rifle on every person in the game and never upgrade rifle skills, for example. There are other (better) ways to provide rewards in games than arbitrary experience points. It's a cludge, and a cludge that's becoming way too important in modern RPGs.

RPG systems are becoming little games in and of themselves, and less important than the ACTUAL game underneath. RPGs have essentially become meta-developmental (I made this word up): it's development for development, and not the game underneath. The biggest barrier to playing a new RPG is learning its particular abstract system, and that's why RPGs with common systems sell well (AD&D, Squaresoft). The stronger the conceptual break between the RPG system and the game underneath, the more abstract it is going to be. If you ask me, RPGs need to move away from abstractions entirely now that the need for them has vanished, for the most part. Quest for Glory's stat system is near perfect: There are no levels, no starting attributes, and no other abstractions. Just a numerical representation of every skill, and every action you take directly affects one or more of them. The next move would be to hide these numbers entirely and display the change graphically (like, I hope, Fable will). Video games make money but they're still a niche, RPGs doubly so, for good reason: the meta-developmental stat systems serve as a block for the RPG's real purpose in life, to allow the player to become even more immersed into the game by being able to change the way he or she plays the game.

But I digress, that's another thread. Returning to FPS/RPG hybrids, if there's a strong conceptual break between the stat system and the game's direct representation of it, the weaker the and more inaccessible the game will be. Thats why Deus Ex outsold SS2 by a wide margin. It was just too inaccessible to non-RPGers, and many RPGers either wouldn't take to the arbitrary skill system or the first person shooter elements (which were quite difficult). Deus Ex bridged the gap a little better, making a skill system that maintained at least a modicum of rationality and plausibility. It's still pretty inaccessible, but it is at least more so than SS2.

And why should anyone care what non-RPGers think? Both games blur genres. Neither are pure RPGs. That alone should mean that other demographics matter. RPG gamers are a decidedly niche group, and limiting that number even more limits sales. Maybe we wouldn't have to moan about the lack of a third system shock if SS2 hadn't had such an arbitraray stat system.