Which RPG ?

Hello Everyone,

I'm a huge RPG fan, but have been out of the gaming scene for quite awhile until now. Now that I have the time and money to indulge in this hobby again, I need your advice on whats out there. I'm interested in both online and offline RPG's, both turn-based and Real-Time. I am a fan of the D&D style games, but also Sci-Fi too. Can you please comment on any of the following or give your own suggestions?

World of Warcraft
Everquest
LOTR Online
Neverwinter Nights
Unreal Tournament Series
Oblivion

anything other suggestions?

Any input is much appreciated !

 

nwn with nwn2 - 2nd being a tad better in oc. plus you get the warlock

unreals aren't rpgs aren't they ?

oblivion is quite interesting even though it gets boring if you plan to play the good old swashbackler sword/axe wielding. hell, even spells and arcane academy is boring. but then you get the dark brotherhood and thieves' guild and the game begins to shine. aah and the main quest pretty boring...

kotor! that's something you ought to know sw universe, d20 based system, great plot. the 2nd part to the story is also good but the first kotor seems to have better all round opinion.

if you like all that kung-fu mambo-jambo you might check "jade empire" but other than music and some quests the game is boring...

dark messiah of might and magic - straightforward mix of fps and rpg of rather hack'n'slash roots. the spectrum of possibilities to fight your way through the hordes of enemies is quite impressive. really.

the witcher - good background, great story. a tad different from usual good hero to save the day, get the princess etc.

finally you might think of hitman blood money as of roleplaying a roleplaying character

 

Oblivion would be my personal choice. I've loved the game ever since I picked up the previous Elder Scrolls, Morrowind. It was highly praised when it came out and it still is. You'd enjoy it a lot, very open-ended.

 

I have played both WoW and EQ, I first started with EQ brushing WoW off thinking it was sucky but it was the other way around, WoW is way better than EQ in terms of leveling, content, solo content. But these huge mmorpg's are only good if you have alot of time daily to invest in, because if you don't then your just "casual" and you don't really get to see all the high end stuff that WoW can offer.

 

What do you guys think about Hellgate?

 

All amazing RPGs, highly recommend all of them

 

Well, having played a few of the titles there I feel that i can comment with something a bit worthwhile

1st..how did Unreal Tournament end up on that list? It's a really great series, but theres nothing even remotely RPG about them. I would however recommend it for having some quick fun with though

WoW...well, where to start...some people like it some don't. I quit about 3 months ago, after having played almost continusly from day 1. I believe that it is very much a question of what you expect from a game. It's VERY easy to figure out the game system (i.e how to play) but my biggest grudge is that it is a massive time sink (and it's also very competitive at the end-game) and that there are a lot of immature people running around. If you can however find the right people to play with i think it's great fun.

Tried a trial of LOTR, but it didn't really stick, best let someone else talk about that. Same goes for Everquest (which I think is allright, judging purely on my second-hand experiences with it)

For offline RPG's I liked both neverwinter nights and Oblivion, but not being a "true" RPG person I preferred NWN over a game like oblivion, but the people I know who are really into RPG's love Oblivion. I myself thought it "quite good" which is something I would play, but not replay several times

(EDIT: You might want to check out the upcoming game "DarkFall", which I think looks quite promising, although it's still in alpha http://www.darkfallonline.com/ )

Hope it's not too confusing ;D and sorry if someone feels that i'm "bashing" this or that, but it's my opinion, and i'm entitled to it

 

Guild Wars FTW!

Great Storylines, Great PvP.

 

the thing with MMO is that you have to choose one and stick with it. otherwise you'll find it very dull and boring quick. EQ was a pure rpg grind and yet it was awesome because of the community that was built around it.

 

Hellgate London is a horrible game. Visually bad, and the first-person shooter aspects of it are ruined by artificial limitations and infinite ammo.

Oblivion is probably my favorite out of the list (though I've been curious about NWN), if for no other reason than the absolutely massive mod community behind it. Vanilla Oblivion is okay, but if you mod it out with a couple mods that make the game more functional (Harvest mods and Keychain come to mind), it's more fun. The Wizard's Tower official mod is a MUST. Oblivion on its own is alright; with the mod community, it's amazing. It's eaten at least 100 hours of my life.

WoW...I'm not a fan of, but a lot of people like it. I'm just not a fan of any game where you have to sort of slog out parts of it to get to the really fun stuff. Early combat is relentlessly dull.

mkarwin mentioned Jade Empire being kind of boring and I really have to agree. I was getting into it and enjoying it and then I realized...yeah, it actually doesn't have a whole lot going on. I'll probably give it a more thorough try later on.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is a lot of fun. No one will accuse it of being a particularly great game, and building a magic user is an exercise in futility because of how paltry and limited your MP is and how mediocre the early spells are, but just about any other build is awesome and a lot of fun. I highly recommend it.

 

I recommend the Witcher, it isn't DnD and the mood in the story is much darker than the NWN series. Combat mechanics are timed and equipment is limited, but much of the fun comes from seeing how you shape the story and the DIY aspect of potions, oils and bombs. Another plus for the game is that it scales well according to hardware (a few OS adjustments required to get the game running smoothly in Vista) and looks decent even on low settings. I finished my first playthrough on normal and am playing through hard now but with different choices in the decision tree.

 

If you like/can deal with mature themes and story elements, I highly recommend The Witcher. The combat system will either be a hit or miss with you, some people are ok with it, others hate it. I personally like it, not just constant clicking, and the alchemy system keeps it interesting. Where this game really shines I think is the storyline. Unlike most RPGs, there isn't any feeling of a bigger battle between good vs evil going on in the world, it just is the way it is. It won RPG of the Year for a reason

 

What he said.

 

All great feedback....thanks for all the info. everyone. I welcome more comments and suggestions!

 

The Witcher, GOTY 2007 in my book.

 

if you like hacking and slashing, along with english humor, try out fable (with or without lost chapters). it's an single player action rpg. i actually enjoyed it alot. you can sorta go "gta" in the game because you can walk into any building (or break into it) search and steal stuff (you can literally steal things from stores), you can fight the police in towns, you can punch anyone you want, and theres all sorts of "good" and "bad" deeds you can do. you got 3 different sets of abilities you can master in (like being a powerhouse sword swinging brute, or be an agile long rang bowman, or you can blast them away with magic, or you can mix it up). you can boast about the quests and attempt them without armor, or without getting hurt, or using your bare knuckles only. it's somewhat of a short game, though there are many side things you can do. the world is pretty much fenced in, but there is a sense of exploration. lots of different gear (some make you "scary" and towns people will fear and run away from you). the game is about you making decisions, like whether or not to kill some good people, or help them.

but all in all, i'd say the game was pretty fun and you should at least try it out. the beginning might be somewhat slow, but once you're more open past you being a kid (like an hour tops?) then it picks up.

 

i agree with Fable although your decisions don't affect the story much. it's simple but fun game if you're not into open ended games like Oblivion.

as many already mentioned i also recommend the witcher.

 

Yet another vote for the witcher

 

none of the baove. Get pirates of the burning seas. Its really amazingly fun and you can get awesome ships. I reccomend it.

 

Oblivion is one, if not the best RPG released in the last couple of years, so I would definitely recommend it.

SW KOTOR is good too, personally I think its too much of a hack and slash, and has very annoying arcade parts...

However if you are into RPG, try some older stuff, which have worse graphics but much much deeper gameplay, like the Baldurs Gate series (the 2nd part is the best RPG ever created), or Planescape Torment, if you don't mind the reading. Or even the Fallout series, which is also one of the best.
Or one of my personal favorites: Arcanum, its made by the guys from Black Isle after it was liquidated.

 

I don't play RPG games but I know my roommate has been playing Neverwinter Nights 2 nonstop for the past 3 months.

 

i just recalled another title - i believe it's funnier than fable, and more of a grown up kind the bards tale. after all, who sais it must always be the pc role to save the world from certain doom

aah and if you like dark gothic climates, buffy or angel series, blade story... you can always try Vampire the Masquerade. even though i prefer elder "redemption", the new "bloodlines" might be for certain enthusiasts quite entertaining... again - the end (or rather one of) is i would say quite amusing.

 

Sice its RPG try "Phantasy star Universe 1 and 2

 

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.....back in the day (like almost 10 ys ago), I loved the old Baldur's Gate games....I'll probably look into it, plus Oblivion does look amazing...I hear so much good press about The Witcher....except I hear the inventory interface is horrible...can anyone vouch for this? I also loved Phantasy Star when it was on the old Sega consoles...Neverwinter Nights also looks awesome...I am very interested in online gaming, but never have. Between WOW, Everquest and LOTR Online, which is the easiest to grasp quickly and have fun? Also, what is KOTOR lol ?? Thanks again for all the great info.!

 

KOTOR is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. There are two games. They are based on the star wars universe but long time before the events in the movies. The gameplay is like Baldur Gate (meaning based on the D&D RPG system). The story is really good and there is a small focusing in making choices (leading to the light or dark side).

 

Inventory is FIFO, so players normally have to reorganise their inventories at least once a game if they want coherency between raw ingredients, potions, oils and other items. I got used to doing an inventory reorg once in Chapter 2 which stayed reasonably organised up to the end of the game.

 

Thanks everyone..I know I'll go with Oblivion to start for sure..and then decide on 1 or 2 more....I'm waiting for my laptop to come in...it'll have a 17'' WUXGA, nVidia 8800M GTS GPU, T8300 CPU, 3 GB RAM....good enough for most games??

 

lol what do you think?

 

I like your taste in games Razor2. I'll also have to vouch for any and all of the BG and Fallout series. I do remember that I wasn't able to get into Fallout Tactics, but 1 and 2 are absolute RPG gold. I'm not entirely sure about this Fallout 3 business either. Might be good, might be crap.

Also, Neverwinter Nights 2 gets a vote from me. Newer and prettier than the Baldur's Gate series, but I can't really say its any better. You just can't touch some classics, I guess.

Finally for the OP, if you are looking for a MMORPG to dive into, there are two up and coming games that may prove very promising, both are (tentatively) scheduled for release later this year:

Age of Conan: Hyborean Adventures

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Time will tell how good these games turn out, but they may be worth investigating.


Happy gaming!

 

nice thread. i've been out of the PC gaming world for almost 5 years now. i loved the classics like baldurs gate, fallout 1 & 2 and planescape. I haven't played baldurs gate 2 much though.

i miss the great adventure games too. what comes to mind is grim fandango, day of the tentacle and the space quest series. sam and max looks good.

i'm getting a macbook pro next month so i'm really excited to get back into gaming. i've made a list of games to play that i missed and these include: homeworld 2, half life 2, splinter cell chaos theory (and the newer one), and more recent games. however i can't seem to find much of quality RPGs nowadays.

i don't know if i'd like to get into WoW, it looks awesome but I'm more of the traditional RPG kind of guy. maybe neverwinter nights 2 is for me, witcher looks interesting but there are some annoyances apparently. i don't like the kind of RPGs that are in first person point of view, i find them tiring to play.

got any more recommendations for a non-online RPG and that isn't in the first person point of view?

 

most first person perspective games offer "behind the back camera view" and vice versa...

good rpgs? really good one and a safe bet is the witcher (by the way if you think it's like the movie "the witcher" you're wrong - the game is absolutely stunning). why? cause there's no direct black and white world... and the hero is nowhere near as "perfect"...

then there's the nwn2 - as it's descendant of bg, bg2, id, id2, nwn, that uses dnd3.5. so if you like the dnd ideas, it's quite obvious choice (besides the one and only bg series ).

if you like all the far eastern movies and ideas as in "crouching tiger..." etc. than you might find "jade empire" intriguing. however as the plot is plain easy, world is totally "monochromatic", and soon the fights are the only thing slightly changing (more enemies, slightly tougher enemies) as you develop styles (btw you actually need at max only 3 styles). nah there's also some interteam subaction (worse than in kotors) and the switch in alignement of your hero (to get extra punch in those specific for the good or bad - like in kotor or fable).

if you liked star wars (movies/games), there's one series you must play - knights of the old republic (kotor) and the second one with subtitle of the sith lords... both are good. you visit the world and you're not required to go one way only, so you can choose "randomized" path... and you get to choose classes that actually determine later eg the style your character will use in fights (do you recall jedi academy?). you can build your gear, improve your sword(s) etc. the bunch of characters that you meet is quite interesting and offers some decent "substories" where you are to play certain parts and you're not required to be the galaxy saviour... the plot and realisation of the games make them feel as if it was a movie where you can influence the script...

oblivion offers solo-campaign where you are to help the country, save everyone etc. there's too much of that in the games i believe... fortunately besides the dull main story there are a lot of subquests... some being just as boring as the main quest (eg missions for fighters guild or mages), others offering really interesting missions (thieves) or simply adoring (db...). unfortunately mostly the game is, imho, too candy like - no grim situations, no terrible weather etc. there are other quirks but that's another story.

should you prefer dark gothic climate you may find last vampire the masquerade preferable. even though it's more like a hl2 with worse graphics, straight idiotic grounds (those pathetic city districts), the game does change a bit with the clan change, the clan's powers after all will be used a lot. plus the multiple ends of the game. interested? the title of the game is "bloodlines"

last you might get into might and magic reality with the "dark messiah". why it's interesting? not the story (it's dumb obvious), not the true fps in medieval times with magic feel - the ways you can eliminate others, the possibility to change the style and see the difference between brute sword master, rogue dagger pincher and a full blast-on fanatic of toasting...

there are other titles mentioned here, eg. titan quest for diablo lovers or mythology maniacs, so you can decide on larger group of potential candidates hope i helped a bit...

 

thanks mkarwin, it really helps i think i'll get the witcher, i hope there's a mac version so i won't have to boot into windows to play

 

Well there's also Dragon Age. I doubt it will be out by next month, but I believe it is supposed to be out some time in Bioware's next fiscal year. It looks to be a beast of an RPG too, might be worth following.

 

i'm afraid gaming is limited to windowses... unfortunately. but hey, you can always dual-boot with xp and play since macs use intel's sr

 

I've been heavily addicted to Titan Quest for the last month. I've played through the game in two difficulty levels and am starting the third. It's loot system is even better than the original diablo (which is probably my favourite hack-n-slash).
Neither are pure rpgs, but close enough to get the job done.
Of course, you can always run emulators and play some good old fashioned console rpgs and tactical rpgs.
JJ

 

yeah, and you can always take a chance with titles such as bg2, icewind dales or temple of elemental evil... there's also throne of darkness (yey, samurai power )

 

Is it even possible to play OLD OLD RPGs like Pool of Radiance, Streams of Silver, Pool of Darkness, Baldur's Gate on a new system?

 

if in 32bit vista - than it is... in 64bit there might be a problem, but you can get emulators as Fa310tx suggested either case...

will check how baldurs works on both 32 and 64bit vistas... just give me some time

 

yeah TQ was fun little game. you should try TQ2 and expansion if you haven't already.

 

I've heard that Gothic 3 has become 'playable' with the latest 1.6 patch.

 

As other have said, the Baldur's Gate serie was just... epic sort of Casablanca for RPGs... =P

Having said that, I played NWN like 4 times plus several downloaded modules, while NWN2 I couldn't finish it... I just got bored, go figure...

SW KOTOR is a great game; long story, "kind of" open; lot of hack and slash for sure, but again, that seems to be D&D focus lately...

Oblivion? I'm having a reeeeally hard time finding enough time to play it! It's, simply put, awesome. Main quest boring? My character has stumbled open it more by chance than anything else. There are so many side quests and guild quest that you could play several times, with totally different characters, different stories and never deal with the main quest.

Vampire: The Masquerade has a great story line / dark feeling... some times I had to turn on the room light.. I mean, the game is able to actually scare some times. To bad graphics and, especially, combat are sub par...

Jade Empire was "nice"; however it really forces you to be the "good" guy; trying to play it on Closed Fist Path is ridiculous.... NWN alignment management was clearly superior (probably because they have 9 combinations rather than just 2).

Long story short: my favorites are NWN and Oblivion.

(will definetly check our Witcher though...!)

Regards

 

HI guys, I have been a fan of RPG's since playing Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9 & 10 on the PS2. I always wanted to try them on the PC, so looked around and found Dungeon Siege and DS2.

In my opinion of you haven't played an RPG and want something that's not necessarily oober gorgeous looking but gives you a great experience, and a chance to experiment with character creation Dungeon Siege II is great.
I completed it and my characters were hurling cool and devistating spells by the end of it. I have Broken arrow but my pc broke before i played it.

I am now waiting to play The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion when i get a M17X, i have aquired loads of Mods and guides and can't wait to play it.

My vote would be for DS2 and Oblivion

The Witcher looks good too, although much darker than Oblivion

OB

 

I have to add my vote to The Witcher and NWN2. NWN2 has an expansion called Mask of the Beholder which I've heard great things about. I've played through NWN1 and NWN2 multiple times. I'm picking The Witcher back up after a month or so. It had to be put aside for work reasons . The story is great so far, good amount of playtime. As far as the mechanics in Witcher, they are easily adjusted to.

 

Thanks...let me know how it works out....my OS is Vista 64-Bit...so I may be out of luck with some of the real oldies...

 

how 'open ended' is NWN2? Closer to Witcher or Oblivion?

 

I wouldn't really say the Witcher is open ended as there is an end goal that eventually gets met. I havent played Oblivion or any of the Elder scroll games in quite some time. BUt what I can remember is that you can wander aimlessly often. I would say NWN2 is closer to Witcher in that aspect.

 

I heard that the Witcher is more structured, in that you follow a story line. Where in oblivion and such like you can do whatever and whenever you want.

 

@domyalex
yes, the main quest is imo boring, predictive, too hollywood-like... and most of the sidequests really show almost funny attitude - being the country saviour, master of the guilds etc. you are asked to get a bottle, a plant or just pass a message to someone... yeah, really great... and at other times, on the other side of cyrodil everyone knows you did something bad (even though there was no witness to catch you red-handed).
vampire isn't that frightening - perhaps you don't have nerves of steel but you must agree that the districts/maps are totally messed up - too straight and easy...
you can play bad guy in jade empire (you "get" the princess through that), but it's only a couple of situations that make you choose sides... just choose "kill him", "die" etc.

@oodle-bear
i've played both DSes and frankly just like fable - the games where too much of a hack'n'slash with really weak plot... but i must agree - it's kind of fun to decimate the hordes with high-level spells.
and the witcher isn't that much structured as the main quest of oblivion! there are a lot branching the storyline moments, and every your move can haunt you - so yes, there's less freedom, but the story is better and it follows your actions and adapts...

@noxxle99
nwn2 is somewhat due to end in either of the two ways - you destroy the main enemy, or join him. oblivion even though is more opened in terms of gameplay is made that way that you can play only a good guy in the main quest (yet the sidequests get you the chance to do something very very bad). witcher is more alignement difference colourful - your character and the world aren't as i already said "monochromatic"...

@n'neophyte
ok in vista 32bit i've run the bg2 with addons with no problem, bg1 needed setting compatibility mode (chose i believe win98 mode). in 64bit bg2 (roughly short tsting) run ok, bg1 again problematic - this time however i used 2 "helpers" - emulator software (game didn't work properly) and VM by ms (virtualpc or something) with compatibility mode and bg1 still had some problems. i might be without some dlls that the game requires, but for the moment i have problems with bg1 on 64bit system.

 

Cheers MK,
I must admit playing Dungeon Siege was my first experience of an RPG on the Pc. I was going to try Baldurs Gate but decided on DS after reading the reviews.
I really want to play Oblivion, although The Witcher looks good too. Seems the RPG is making a comeback!
The other game I can't wait to play is Starcraft 2, looks amazing, compared to the original.

 

I think 2008 will turn to be pretty good year for mmorpg fans

Age of Conan, Warhammer online, Aion... All those most likely coming out later this year.

I'm personally waiting for Age of Conan... and Also Guildwars 2 is supposed to come out in near future.