Daimon's Lair

The RPG genre in video-gaming is very often a love-hate thing. The purpose of this article is not to examine the genre itself or laud any of its components. Rather, I want to look at an often over-looked aspect of RPG design: the in-game economy.

An essential feature of an RPG is its leveling system, and part of that system is the continued upgrading of the player's equipment and, depending on the game, the equipment of the party members. Given the length and depth of most RPGs, the economy in the game is a crucial design element--tying in to its accessibility to new players, its fun-to-play factor, and quite possibly its replay value. I'm going to try and make a brief survey of some basic types, their pros and cons, and then leave it open for you the reader to fill in what I know are many blanks in my knowledge.

Speaking of blanks, I'm going to make the first category one that I admit I have little direct experience with:

Loot Drop

When I think of loot drop in games, I instantly think of the Diablo series. I enjoy the games, but I have wrists that are irritated by excessive mouse-clicking, so I haven't exactly been able to really get into the game. But the sheer depth (yet deliciously semi-random) nature of the weapons and other items that drop from dead enemies fuels the addiction of the dungeon-crawling game.

From a totally different angle, there's the recent game Too Human. I played the demo, and, well, there were a lot of things I could criticize about the game. But here the 'loot drop' model is very poorly constructed. Erik Brudvig in his review for IGN begins by saying that "if you love collecting random loot drops, you'll find a lot to like here." He then adds later: "the game puts a big emphasis on leveling your character and outfitting him with better equipment, but then scales enemies and loot drops to you. The thrill of finding a sweet weapon is nearly lost -- you're stronger but soon enough the enemies are too." I seem to remember another reviewer (but I can't find the article) also commenting that, since many weapons are class-specific, you can have a 'supreme sword of ass-kicking' drop, only to find out that you can't equip it because you're not the right class.


I enjoy loot dropping and foraging in RPGs, but the design mistakes in implementing this particular in-game economy turned me off.


Finite Leveling

To a certain extent, everything is derivative (or somehow similar) to the loot drop model. One way, however, this model changes is when leveling is capped--not via a hard cap--by a 'soft' or 'hidden' cap. This hidden cap comes into play in games that literally have only so much experience to be earned, usually by having a finite number of enemies--and enemies that, once cleared, never respawn. First in my mind when it comes to this model are two games from the same company: BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect.


Let's take the classic first. There are many things to laud KOTOR about, but it's economy is more of a mixed bag. There are definitely items worth having--especially armor--at high-dollar amounts that are unique to certain vendors. At the same time, the tuning is way off.


**SPOILER**
During the fight through the final planet before the Star Forge, my inventory was filled--FILLED--to the brim with countless blasters, low-level lightsabers/crystals, and other miscellanous items. But no opportunity to cash in for credits, because, well, the endgame had already begun. So I finished the game incredibly rich, but to no use. Yes, it's more of an annoyance, but every time I've played the game I always think it's kind of odd. Sure, there are plenty of useful items like health packs, but. . . .


One thing I have to praise, however, is a side story many players probably never uncovered. One of the locations you can visit in the game is a space station orbiting Yavin. It's relatively unremarkable, though a decent place to stock up for supplies. But if you visit enough (I believe three or four times, if I remember) you get drawn into defending the proprietor from an especially nasty cadre of thugs.


This is a HARD fight--easily the hardest fight in the game. What's your reward? I forget if there's anything you get outright, because that's not the biggie. The owner gives you the opportunity to brows his 'special' stock: the two best lightsaber crystals in the game. They're not cheap (20,000 credits a pop) but well worth it. I love the optional nature of the fight, and the fact that the reward is something more than worthwhile.


In many ways, the later Mass Effect went the wrong direction. Salvage and loot drop in KOTOR is occasionally rewarding, but mostly to build up credits through re-sale. The balance here is almost entirely reversed. I've played the game front to back twice, but several partial starts as well. Even with combat kicked up to the hardest difficult level available, I found items worth purchasing on (at best) an occasional basis. There are tons of vendors--even a quartermaster aboard your own ship!--and almost nothing that was worth buying. The equipment I gained by looting was always better, and I ended each playthrough with an absolutely ridiculous amount of credits. And, honestly, I stopped picked up items towards the end unless they were actually better than my current loadout.


Foraging Realism
Several games could fit the bill here, but my main experience is with the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Fallout 3. How different could these games get from those above?


All three, but especially Oblivion and Fallout 3, have hard level caps with essentially infinite enemies. It's not so much that areas re-populate with enemies (though many do) or that there are random battles (a la JRPGs like Final Fantasy games), but that your character is maxed out long before you've seen and done everything. These are 'completionist' games--games that take serious addiction/love to actually exhaust the content.


That's one difference. But how does that affect the economy? The sheer expansiveness of the world allows for some interesting design decisions. For one, all three games are filled with essentially useless items. Some are genuinely useless, while others weigh far too much (compared to their value) to make them worth carrying back to a store for re-sale.


Weight of items in an inventory. I didn't really mention this concerning the games above, but this is the only model that makes sense. Certain items weigh more--in a quite realistic progression--and your character can only carry so much. This restricts the foraging and makes it more purposeful. *I realize Diablo could fit in here, but it's not quite the same. Feel free to prove me wrong, though!*



In contrast, games in the previous category either have no cap on inventory or a sheerly arbitrary one (Mass Effect is capped at 200 items, irregardless of item type). That just doesn't make sense, especially the arbitrary caps. It's more realistic, and from a design perspective, it creates a nice rhythm of 'explore, gather loot, visit town, resell, repeat'.


And, if that's not enough realism for you, another element comes in. Your weapons and armor degrade and require repairs. The games from the Elder Scrolls series and Fallout 3 different slightly in terms of mechanics, but the central feature is attrition. Especially in Fallout 3, it's sometimes difficult to survive--simply because, you need more money to buy x, but to buy x you need to explore for loot. And looting wears out your equipment, and usually means getting injured fighting enemies, and that requires expensive medical treatment.


I recently restarted Fallout 3 with combat kicked to the hardest level, and it's a struggle to have enough ammo on hand and stimpaks to heal myself for certain combat situations. This makes the game that much more addictive.


So What's the Point?

Like with anything, there's no absolute right answer, but the foraging realism model seems superior to me. Maybe it's just because I'm a fan of the particular games in question, but it allows the game to fall into a natural rhythm similar to the FPS genre's "30-seconds of fun" model executed so well by the folks at Bungie.

First Impressions
Bioware (for me) is the RPG to Bungie's FPS. So far, they can do no wrong. And, though some of the comments I read in reviews of the game about a lack of originality to the world (which I address here) I've been impressed with all of the aspects an RPG has to capture: world, characters, plot, and gameplay.


Pacing
My experience with BioWare began with the classic Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for PC (played on several friends' computers). Anyone who's played that game will recognize the basic structure. The main plotline requires finishing several rather lengthy quests (which all, of course, spawn their own sub-quests) in no particular order. Even though you're *encouraged* to go to Redcliffe first, you do any of the other main quests first.

That said, this isn't an open-world RPG in the vein of the Elder Scrolls series or Fallout 3. In fact, while the environments are all well-done and have good variety, my favorite parts of the game involve Orzammar--especially the forays into the Deep Roads--that are semi-linear in progression. Perhaps because the constrained level design is compatible with an underground environment. Artificially inducing corridors in a forest just makes it feel artificially structured--which in turn breaks immersion.

Another criticism is something inherent to the plot design of the game. The opening battle against the darkspawn is a huge moment. But until the very end of the game, there's no more big battles. Did the darkspawn decided to take a vacation?

I know the PC has to run around recruiting allies, but it would have made for somewhat better pacing if there were smaller battles before the incredibly challenging battle in Denerim. This would also highlight the optional sequence of recruitment--i.e., having to face an early battle with just mages in one playthrough, and the same battle with just dwarves in another.

Incidentally, this was one of my critiques of Awakening--the full expansion pack that I've finished but still need to review as well.

Game Mechanics
The primary feature of Dragon Age is the radial menu--which controls everything from potions, poisons, a 'quick heal' command, sustained spells/talents, activated spells/talents, and even some 'advanced' functions which appear during certain quest-specific times. It sounds like a lot, but it's really a pretty intuitive system--and your most commonly-used spells/talents can be mapped to a dual-layer face-button hotkey system.

The radial menu itself is similiar to anyone who played Mass Effect--with one particular advantage. Instead of having to hold down a button while scrolling through, you can set the menu to toggle open-closed. I found this a great feature for my own physical limitations.

Balance
The default difficulty level is pretty good, though there are battles--especially the final fight against the archdemon--that can turn downright frustrating. Part of it is the default AI. Maybe I could have spent more time tweaking the combat mechanics system (which was a nice addition but tiresome to update every time one of your party members got a cool ability), but during boss fights and other difficult battles I found myself constantly in 'pause' mode via the radial menu. Hmm, that reminds me of KOTOR. . . .

Another balance issue (though realistic) is that some boss fights that *should* be hard come off as wars of attrition because it's just 4 on 1. Keep everyone healed and its just a matter of time before you can plunder their corpse. I'm thinking of a couple battles here that I won't name because it would spoil plot. At least the hardest 'bosses' are purely optional. The main quest is somewhat more even until the archdemon--here we have an incredibly hard single enemy matched with large numbers of weaker enemies. I was stuck here longer than any other part of the game.

Imitation is the Highest Form of Flattery
I have little to no hope of Fable III fixing many of my issues with that frachise's utterly shallow relationship system. But Peter Molnyeux should really take a look at the like/dislike relationship system in Dragon Age. Some characters I never really interacted with--so I could never even talk with them about their back-stories. Others (e.g. Morrigan) I was fascinated with, and wished there was more to discover. And the twist at the end of our romance. . . wow.

This takes a really simple system that Obsidian introduced in KOTOR II and really fleshed it out. I still crave more back-story or companion-specific quests, but there's only so much content you can put in an RPG and still make money on it. I spent (including time in pause screens dealing with crying kids) close to 90 hours on my first play-through). Considering that the politics, world, and NPCs are much more deeply developed than more massive games like Oblivion, I'm content with the content provided.

Nitpicks
Every game has its glitches, but two complaints stick with me:

(1) Certain quests never showed up as complete, even though I had completed them. This is really annoying when you like a game so much that you're tempted towards completionist status.

(2) The in-game economy still isn't quite right. It's probably one of the better of the BioWare games, but by the end I have a boatload of money and not much to spend it on. Certainly nowhere near as bad as Mass Effect, where there's almost nothing worth buying and all the good weapons come via questing, but it's still annoying. I also hate having an inventory cap that's totally unrealistic. I like the weight system used in Oblivion, not the arbitrary 'number of items, except duplicates' that BioWare uses here.

Would You Do it All Again?
Yes, absolutely. In fact, I think I'm going to start a new origin story tonight (or play my new start of Fallout 3). Which is, of course, the primary way BioWare sought to provide incredibly replay value. The six separate origin stories are brief (1-3 hours of gameplay) but set the stage for how people in Ferelden view you. Granted, I have yet to play more than my first character, but I can think of dozens of ways the experience will change the second time through. Even changing class radically changes gameplay for the main character.


Also, I'm going to try nightmare mode this time through (the highest difficulty level). Partly it has to do with the fact that I'm curious to see how hard it is in the first game--Awakening is way too easy as the levels increase--and also to keep the combat from getting too repetitious a second time through.

I almost wish I'd pre-ordered this game rather than wait longer. It's good. Really good. And the DLC (I've played everything except The Darkspawn Chronicles) is excellent. In fact, other than the Halo 3 map packs, probably the best DLC content I've purchased to date.

I've heard that smell is the sense most closely tied with memory. That may be, but from the opening menu screen on, the (admittedly cheezy) sounds of Perfect Dark bring back heavenly memories from my college days playing split-screen multiplayer on a 13'' TV. The re-release of the original game, with polished graphics and framerate, is something I wish more people would do. This is an awesome blast from the past!

The Highs: The textures and models are awful compared to modern games, but the graphics engine has clearly been overhauled--I'm now playing it on a 46'' with surround sound. Running on modern hardware probably doesn't hurt, either. I still listen to the soundtrack off my computer on occasion, so I knew the music would hold up well.

The combat is fun, even with the ridicilous auto-aiming that was a necessary element on the single-analog stick N64. That said, the controls are incredibly clunky compared to modern shooters. This is an iconic FPS, a must-play for anyone, but the $10 price tag is just right. As much as I love this game, I wouldn't pay any more unless it really was a re-make. And, please, don't mention the prequel--though I will have to dust that off now and give it another chance.

The Lows: Did I mention the controls? Also, there are two things that scream out after an hour or so with the full game. A great aspect of Perfect Dark is that you could still play multiplayer-style matches even when your friends weren't around. Why don't more developers put AI bots into their local multiplayer? But, while that feature is still in the game, I remember (rather mindless) nights of fun with my roommate destroying hordes of 'meat sims', only occasionally being overrun by sheer numbers. I want to say that the original game allowed something like 99 bots (whatever it was, it was a lot), but the 'new' game only allows 4. 4?!!! Come on!

Yet, something I wish they HAD changed was the relatively poorly balanced default weapon sets in the multiplayer. Probably 99% of the time I used custom sets, because the default weapon spawns are pretty atrocious. How do poison knives and timed mines balance with a crossbow that can kill you with a single shot?

AND WHERE'S MY LAPTOP GUN? Maybe I just haven't gotten to it yet, but I haven't seen my favorite weapon yet.