[Rainer Deyke]

There is no such thing as computer generated content. There is human generated content that is created through tools such as paint programs and map editors, and there is human generated content that is created through tools such as whatever programming language you use to write your random map generator.

Let me just reiterate that I don't like randomly generated worlds. I just don't think that there's anything inherently special about the game designer arbitrarily deciding that the cave of discomfort is to the east of town instead of the west of town, as opposed to a random number generator deciding the same thing. You'll only be able to tell the difference if you see that the random number generator sometimes produces one result and sometimes produces the other result.

I also don't see what you mean by "completely random".
"Completely random" maps would be completely unplayable, so every map generator generate maps with certain structural elements. Rogue had structural elements in the form of rooms and hallways. Chrono Trigger had structural elements in the form of completely predesigned maps in a predetermined arrangement. It's justl a question of degree.

[LeoDraco]

[Mandrake]

[Nephilim]

[Mandrake]

Right, but what I'm talking about is combining a hybrid game- that takes a little bit of both to create something new. With this theoritical game we would want to have gameplay last longer than the usual rogue-types. For example, Evolution and Chocobo's Dungean also have random dungeans, and yet the play time for those is supposed to be much longer than an RL's.
_________________
"Well, last time I flicked on a lighter, I'm pretty sure I didn't create a black hole."-
Xmark

http://pauljessup.com

[Rainer Deyke]

[Mandrake]

[LeoDraco]

[Hajo]

I've been with the roguelike crowd a long time. They don't consider random characters a problem, and they appreciate random maps very much.

Their main reason is replayability. Every time you start, the game is a bit different. A different character with different maps, and often even different items to find (random artefacts).

The replayability is linked to the frequent and permanent death - if characters die often, you have to restart often. If the world is fixed, the 5th game will be ultimately boring. But if the world changes from game to game, even the 20th or 50th character can be fun to play. Some roguelike players played several thousand characters overall (one can see this from the hiscore tables that are published sometimes).

Roguelikes are meant to be hard, insanely difficult. IIRC the first games were meant to be unbeatable, the player was supposed to die at some point. They are a challenge of power and tactical skills.

The games are shallow (in respect to story and NPC interaction), but e.g. Nethack has a very detailed and complex system of iteraction between items, monsters and the map. It's deeper than in any other games that I've seen or read about.

Overall the lack of story and NPC interaction doesn't seem to hurt much, roguelikes have a rather large fan base. We can consider Diablo and Diablo II to be reguelikes, adapated to the commercial games market. The sold millions, and most players were pleased by the experience. There are hints that the traditional roguelikes have a players base at least as large, but noone knows exactly.

There is one thing to note: Some Roguelike followers don't see roguelikes as (C)RPGs. They consider them to be a genre of their own. Maybe this is why RPG fans are disappointed if they try roguelikes and have "I want a RPG" in mind. Roguelikes lack lot's of what is expected from RPG but are well-thought and interesting games if you accept their overall style.

Edit:

[Mandrake]

Ok, everyone should look at the title of the article, and then rethink this whole thing. I'm not saying problems with RL's as a game, but rather problems with RL's when it comes to player-character emotional ties, as well as player-world emotional ties. I'm not saying RL's should change- but rather I was talking (and still am talking about) a hybrid game that could make a RL with player-character emotional ties. IE: A game where the player is attatched to the world, character and history. I think RL's are RPG's, and that they RPG's in the most basic, primitive sense (ie: like Homo Eractus to modern day Humans). I don't have a problem with RL's- I love to play them.

But what I was saying was that they contain no player-character emotional ties, and that it is possible to do so by creating a hybrid game of sorts. RL's frequent and permenant death *does* keep the player from creating an emotional tie, and you can still make a game hard and impossible to beat without this. Frequent death and perment death is also not necassary for a game to use random levels to their full replayability (ie: Diablo, Evolution, etc) and depth.

I have a feeling most of you did not read the full article, and didn't make it past the "Problems with Rogue Likes" section. Nephlim seems to be the only one that fully grasped what I was talking about.
_________________
"Well, last time I flicked on a lighter, I'm pretty sure I didn't create a black hole."-
Xmark

http://pauljessup.com

[Hajo]

Right, I didn't read past that. I just wanted to paint out that the effect that you labeled a "problem" isn't a problem for a large group of players.

I'm sorry if my answer seemed to reply to all points of the article.

Below I'll give a very personal view on "emotional attachment":

In some cases I hate emotional attachment: like the game master lets me get some super item, just to take it away from me when I got used to it and make me hunt the thief to get it back.

Back then, I've sworn never to buy things that I can't replace if lost. I mean, I had invested all my money in this artefact, and I was completely ruined when I lost it. I'll never do that again. I guess this was also a good lession for real life. (Edit: the problem was loosing the control - I gave someone else the power to rule my decisions. Never get into that trap! What you do not have, noone can take from you. Not having anything is a kind of freedom.)

I'm usually very attached to the characters I play. When I play them, I am them, and what the game master does to them, he does to me. This indeed has ruined a former friendship :-/

I dislike roguelikes for permanent death feature. I just like my characters too much. So I guess a roguelike with save/reload would be perfect for me :)

Someone who wants to create a horror game told me how to use emotional attachment to create horror, fear and desperation. I believe this will work well - but I'll never play his game just because of that. I hate that kind of emotional pain.

[Mandrake]

[Hajo]

I guess I shouldn't have posted without reading all of the article. I feel I'm ruining your discussion. I'm sorry, I didn't (and don't) want to do that.

But you said a few things that I want to respond to (off topic in regard to the original topic - you're a moderator, if you want to keep this thread clean, move my reply somewhere else)

[Mandrake]

[Nephilim]