RPG game - what is it? This is not about a manual anti-tank grenade launcher, but about the genre of computer games, which occupies one of the leading places in the industry.
Distinctive features
The abbreviation stands for Role Play Game or Role Playing Game. The creations of this genre are characterized by the presence of ornate dialogues, freedom of action and a rich game world.
But usually the calling card is the skill points that need to be distributed between the available characteristics for a balanced leveling of the character.
Typically, a set of those is made up of indicators like strength, agility, armor, magic and intelligence.
But this is not a complete description. RPG games on PC are characterized by some exciting storyline. The player must lead the character through all the intricate turns of the game, live a small life in his skin - play a role and feel everything that the protagonist should feel on himself. These are modern games of this genre.
Gameplay and RPG game
What is an RPG and how else can you identify ownership? The answer is simple: usually a player controls one or more characters. If this is a detachment, then, as a rule, in modern games, each team member has his own task for the main character.
The gameplay itself is an extensive quest chain: this is the main storyline and side quests. The first one affects the main plot of the game, the second one contributes to the disclosure of personalities helping the protagonist, describes a little the history of the world where events unfold, plunging the player even deeper into the process.
Research and interaction
RPG games on PCs are also characterized by the ability to travel around the world with the aim of research, finding the necessary items that contribute to the further development of events.
The main character successfully interacts with the environment: uses improvised objects, activates levers to open secret doors. We are not talking about the usual "shooter", where the player just runs and smashes the enemies to the right and left.
The game world in the RPG genre also affects the character in the form of traps, natural phenomena, spawning enemies, as well as the presence of places closed from the character initially. It is understood that one can get there only after performing certain actions, quests or not at all.
Plot
An important feature is the plot nonlinearity: further development of events depends on the choice of one’s own path. If we consider the old shareware RPG games on a computer where payment was made only for the purchase of the CD itself, then we can say that the plot did not differ in any intricate twists.
The offspring of the NOX type was a classic PRG with a third-person view, where you had to go to the end and punish the main villain, after which watch the final video and forget it.
With the development of technology, the genre of computer role-playing games has also changed. It’s enough to recall such masterpieces as Mass Effect and Dragon Age from BioWare to give an example of how even a small trifle opens up a whole chain of events. There is also additional paid content, which is purchased separately.
What is a modern RPG game? What is a masterpiece in general? It is these games that can serve as the answer. In them, the player has to make a deal with conscience, make difficult decisions, carefully select the answer in the ornate provocative dialogues. Each step leads to incorrigible consequences, decisions can affect the attitude of team members to the protagonist, and the endings depend on all the actions in the game in total.
Sleep is for wimps!
Remembering about RPG games online, we immediately present World of Warcraft from Blizzard. The project with a stunning huge world inhabited by mysterious creatures, crowded with many game locations, attracts attention for a long time. Many people play for years, "lost" in this amazing place.
The essence of the game is straightforward: team up to defeat difficult bosses, participate in the battle with players from other cities or countries of the world, and also explore locations in search of interesting objects that contribute to character development.
Classes
As a rule, RPG games online and offline are characterized by the presence of the following game classes: warrior, mage and archer. The presence of such game characters is a classic of the genre. More advanced projects (for example, the already mentioned Dragon Age) imply the presence of mixed classes: this, for example, is a combat mage who can both fight in close combat and use elementary spells.
Several ways
The nature of the behavior on the battlefield is different. A character with stronger armor usually causes fire on himself to protect the “thinner” teammates. Such a player is called a “tank” on gaming slang.
Another type is “damage” (from the word damage), which has high damage rates. Usually it has weak armor, therefore it is behind the "tank" and is engaged in the destruction of opponents.
Next to all is some kind of magician who either heals the two above, imposes either an increased attack on the “damage”, or increased armor on the “tank”. Such a player is called a “buffer.”
There are also “debuffers” - a player in a team whose goal is to remove the amplifications imposed by the enemy mage.
These are the general principles of any modern RPG game.
Genre classification
In the piggy bank of almost any game developer, there is an released RPG game. What is so special about this genre that the leading gaming companies are so drawn to it? The answer is simple: freedom of creativity.
Experiments in the field of the gaming industry have led to the fact that the RPG genre itself can be safely classified:
- RPG storytelling - roughly speaking, the protagonist is simply placed in certain conditions, and the player “goes with the flow”, completing unexpected quests falling upon him. But in the end - an interesting ending. Examples include the Dragon Age and Mass Effect trilogies.
- RPG-sandbox - the protagonist can do whatever your heart desires in a gigantic fully open world. As a rule, the game has many quest chains that are not related to each other. Such offspring are considered almost "endless" in terms of passage. Example: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
- RPG-sweeping - in other words, the player runs through the masses of locations, crushing endless crowds of monsters, completing any tasks, picking up objects and moving from one location to another. Examples: Diablo Series, Dungeon Siege.
Action RPG
Separately, it is worth noting this unusual product of developer experimentation. Features consist in the fact that the battles in the game are in active mode. That is, the outcome of the battle depends not only on the characteristics of the character, weapons, armor, but also on the reaction speed of the player sitting at the monitor. For example, in battles you need to dodge bullets, change location (a missile strike can fly in position), constantly move and shoot, and also hide to make up for health.
The genre should not be confused with the “slasher”, because in the action-RPG the emphasis is also on dialogs and the development of the storyline. The most striking examples are the series The Witcher and Gothic. The same genre includes the mentioned Mass Effect trilogy and the brainchild of the Betherda The Elder Scrolls series.
Conclusion
Progress does not stand still. Every year there are more and more new games that are densely deposited in the minds of gamers, preventing them from sleeping for weeks, or even months. But only, it would seem, an interesting game has been completed, how does a new one come out that overshadows the previous one.
If earlier companies tried to steal ideas from each other, trying to make a game that is a copy of another (only adding something of their own), now leading world developers have fully settled in the gaming industry market and have established themselves well.
Monsters such as Bioware, Bethesda and the private Polish company CD Projekt RED, known to players in the Witcher series of games, are the first to come to mind.
Once Dragon Age: Origins was named one of the best games according to the magazine "Gambling", but then came such "titans" as Skyrim, and later Fallout, and supplanted the "Dragon Age". But BioWare quickly regained the initiative with the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
So this stream of ideas from various developers rushes, pushing like passengers in a crowded train at rush hour, trying to break through to the exit before the doors slam shut. One game “pushes” another, both in popularity and in terms of system requirements. New technologies require both payback and high system characteristics of the gaming platform.
Therefore, both the price of the released game is growing, and the need for gamers to save money on the new gaming hardware, which will fully meet the system requirements.
Moreover, usually on official sites and in game print media two types of system requirements are indicated: minimum and recommended. It is clear that the graphics will be worse on the “minimum”, the game will slow down a little, but in general the process will be quite tolerable. Owners of powerful computers are especially lucky - they can enjoy their favorite game at maximum settings.
As a result, there is only one way out: to save to a new computer so as not to spoil the impression of the new product.