This game really have a RPG problem

[zero.calvin]

This game doesnt really allow you to roleplay that much... if you want to be an example student that avoid trouble, too bad, you are going to break rules no matter what, there are even main quest that force you to break school rules... if you want to be a scary cat, you can choose all the "i dont want to deal with danger" dialogue, but at the end of the day, your character is the 1st who jump into danger...

For a sequel, I really hope they'll expend on the roleplaying expect of the game, with choice that matters, a morality system and a world that would change as result of your character's action..

[Trump G.O.A.T-POTUS]

Originally posted by Gingerbreadman:

Originally posted by SotiCoto:

Not really, no.
The matter of playing a role is one of making choices as befit a character. That is to say you pretend to be someone you're not, and your choices and actions reflect the character you are playing as.
If you can't direct a character's action in any particular direction then you're not playing a role at all. You're just making the plot move forwards along a predetermined path for which you are no more than an accelerant.

You are confusing playing a role with player agency

Playing super Mario by your definition is a RPG.

[Tr0w]

Originally posted by StingingVelvet:

It's more of an open world action game with RPG elements, like Assassin's Creed or Horizon. It doesn't have the RPG depth of something like Witcher 3, and even that game I would say pales in comparison to a Fallout or whatever.

It pales in comparison to the game that inspired it as well, when it comes to consequences The Witcher games fall flat on their face. Same with Cyberpunk. You can just walk in to anyones property and take all their stuff, they won't do anything, nor will the authorities. Compare that to Gothic where you'll be beaten unconscious and have your weapon and money taken by the NPC you tried to steal from, or like you said Bethesda games where either the NPC will attack you, they call the guards, or you end up with a bounty.

[SotiCoto]

Originally posted by Tate56:

Telltale games are better described as "branching narative". RPGs tend to have skill building mechanics

Most do, but I wouldn't call that even remotely important. An RPG doesn't need statistics.

I'd count a lot of point-and-click adventures as RPGs, not to mention most visual novels.

[cults]

Originally posted by Tr0w:

Originally posted by StingingVelvet:

It's more of an open world action game with RPG elements, like Assassin's Creed or Horizon. It doesn't have the RPG depth of something like Witcher 3, and even that game I would say pales in comparison to a Fallout or whatever.

It pales in comparison to the game that inspired it as well, when it comes to consequences The Witcher games fall flat on their face. Same with Cyberpunk. You can just walk in to anyones property and take all their stuff, they won't do anything, nor will the authorities. Compare that to Gothic where you'll be beaten unconscious and have your weapon and money taken by the NPC you tried to steal from, or like you said Bethesda games where either the NPC will attack you, they call the guards, or you end up with a bounty.

Yep, you can nitpick definitions as much as you want. Technically, all definitions are made up and reality is subjective. Those are both true facts, but to have a conversation, we have to have the same base understanding of the ground rules of the argument. We don't need to invent the universe to make an apple pie from scratch, even though it's correct.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkHCO8f2TWs

So let's have an honest conversation, we have to admit that what is being sold to us as RPG today pales in comparison of what once was. And so to call any modern game an RPG is to not know your history. You can run covering fire for the industry by arguing irrelevant semantics, but for a RPG to be a RPG, one player must be able to impact the narrative different from another at the very minimum. It's the one thing that all RPGs have in common.

This game is a RPG in the same way the breadcrumbs are a meal. You're not qualified to discuss food if you think that breadcrumbs are a meal. And you're allowed to tell me that breadless bread is bread, but you'll have to be real clever to make it work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m6YYAXqwXk

This game is not clever. This game is neither bread or not bread, it is a failure at delivering either. It's an idiot sandwich at best. It has no redeeming qualities.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally posted by cults:

So let's have an honest conversation, we have to admit that what is being sold to us as RPG today pales in comparison of what once was. And so to call any modern game an RPG is to not know your history. You can run covering fire for the industry by arguing irrelevant semantics, but for a RPG to be a RPG, one player must be able to impact the narrative different from another at the very minimum. It's the one thing that all RPGs have in common.

There are still true RPGs being made, they're just mostly smaller budget or indies. The CRPG genre had a huge renaissance and I would definitely consider those true RPGs.

Pretty much everything that isn't something like Solasta is a genre mix of some kind. Even real-time with pause RPGs like Baldur's Gate are to some extent a genre mix with RTS. Still they are close enough I think anyone rational would say they're true RPGs.

Fallout 3? Witcher 3? Diablo? Far Cry? All varying stages of genre mixing. Hogwarts is in there somewhere.

[Tr0w]

Originally posted by StingingVelvet:

Originally posted by cults:

So let's have an honest conversation, we have to admit that what is being sold to us as RPG today pales in comparison of what once was. And so to call any modern game an RPG is to not know your history. You can run covering fire for the industry by arguing irrelevant semantics, but for a RPG to be a RPG, one player must be able to impact the narrative different from another at the very minimum. It's the one thing that all RPGs have in common.

There are still true RPGs being made, they're just mostly smaller budget or indies. The CRPG genre had a huge renaissance and I would definitely consider those true RPGs.

Pretty much everything that isn't something like Solasta is a genre mix of some kind. Even real-time with pause RPGs like Baldur's Gate are to some extent a genre mix with RTS. Still they are close enough I think anyone rational would say they're true RPGs.

Fallout 3? Witcher 3? Diablo? Far Cry? All varying stages of genre mixing. Hogwarts is in there somewhere.

RTT maybe, definitely not RTS as RTS revolves around base building.

[Patricia Hapon]

Originally posted by cults:

So let's have an honest conversation bla bla bla but for a RPG to be a RPG, one player must be able to impact the narrative different from another at the very minimum. It's the one thing that all RPGs have in common.

For a RPG to be a RPG you should be able to launch missile with it.
That pun being (re)made ...
For an honest conversation based on facts and not just confronting opinions you'll have to explain "minimum". What is "minimum" ?

Without that base, that little detail, well, we can tie together lot of fine words but it will stay opinions on a subject were there is so much sub-genres to qualify the mix of genres that we can go around for all eternity.
---
[At that point otter was in pains and all filters came loose. Normally the otter try to not put her opinion too much, easily doubting, asking or joking... Well, after this, it will not be the case, it will be an unfiltered flow of thoughs, opinions and experiences. Sorry.]
---
If we've sub-genre it's because games tend to not follow only on genre, one set of rules, but to more or less mix them all. For simplicity the industries and normal people don't quantify "the genre". You don't say "it's a 10% adventure 30% action 60% survival game dear". You don't say for a battle royal in fps playing in a modern time with a gestion of an inventory and skills that you're playing a modern-survival-FPS-battle royal-RPG. (and that's how we ended with "-like", doom-like, rogue-like, diablo-like ... But that's something else)
For RPG (our subject) we've quite a lot of subgenre, ARPG, JRPG, rogue-like, MMORPG (where, the story don't care at all about your choices, maybe not true with recent one, but MMORPG isn't a recent term), TRPG ect.
An RGP subgenre pretty much mean "that genre with RPG elements".

All those subgenres have one thing in common : Skills, level, progression of a character and such. That's also what put them apart from a fighting game, race game, shooting game, sport game (here again, except recents ones, hear me out : I don't care about moderns thingies, those terms, those genres, those mechanics, are old, unless you're born before them, I don't care, I don't go around renaming things just because I think a dog should be called a pooping-machine, it was called dog before I was born, I accept, even if it's wrong and they're pooping-machines)

So based on this, what is the trade-making of an RPG and is even common with tabletop ? Character sheet, leveling, progression.
Here, now I give my opinion, an RPG have a character progression, HL have a character progression, leveling and talent tree (poor one, but still) so it's also an RPG, it's oriented adventure so ARPG.

Does it answer OP ? No. OP just made the mistake to put three poor letters together and we all focused on that.

So, OP, if you hear me (I doubt) :
Yeah HL is an (A)RPG but your title should be changed.
Does HL give you the ability to roleplay ? No, not really, it would have been better on that part if it was a sandbox game, or a school life simulation, but it's not made for that, not made for roleplaying, it's an adventure game and it's mean to be played like a tomb raider, uncharted, GoW, Witcher or whatever.
Were we (you, me and maybe others) waiting for a more immersive, free experience that would make us feel part of a school, a house, a universe where we woul've have been able to play whatever we wanted ? Yes, but that's on us, the game never said that in any way.

Will they make that for a sequel ? I don't know, I doubt it actually. In lot of way this game feel like Shadow of mordor, they just stay in known lands.

Chapter 2 : Extensions
No, I'm joking, there is no chapter 2 (... For now...) I'll try to stop reading here. Have a good evening, day, month, life, hoping you'll be able to share opinions with respect and intelligence (unlike me that bore you to death with walls of texts).

[Fraktal]

Originally posted by Cyrix:

Originally posted by cults:

Both the publisher and developer had never done RPGs before. And looks like they still haven't. To call this game "open world" is borderline a scam.

After the first few hours, you can wander pretty much anywhere you like. You can walk or fly for miles and visit almost any location you can see. How exactly is it not open world?

My small back yard has more life than the world here.

[cults]

Originally posted by Patricia Hapon:

Originally posted by cults:

So let's have an honest conversation bla bla bla but for a RPG to be a RPG, one player must be able to impact the narrative different from another at the very minimum. It's the one thing that all RPGs have in common.

For a RPG to be a RPG you should be able to launch missile with it.
That pun being (re)made ...
For an honest conversation based on facts and not just confronting opinions you'll have to explain "minimum". What is "minimum" ?

Without that base, that little detail, well, we can tie together lot of fine words but it will stay opinions on a subject were there is so much sub-genres to qualify the mix of genres that we can go around for all eternity.
---
[At that point otter was in pains and all filters came loose. Normally the otter try to not put her opinion too much, easily doubting, asking or joking... Well, after this, it will not be the case, it will be an unfiltered flow of thoughs, opinions and experiences. Sorry.]
---
If we've sub-genre it's because games tend to not follow only on genre, one set of rules, but to more or less mix them all. For simplicity the industries and normal people don't quantify "the genre". You don't say "it's a 10% adventure 30% action 60% survival game dear". You don't say for a battle royal in fps playing in a modern time with a gestion of an inventory and skills that you're playing a modern-survival-FPS-battle royal-RPG. (and that's how we ended with "-like", doom-like, rogue-like, diablo-like ... But that's something else)
For RPG (our subject) we've quite a lot of subgenre, ARPG, JRPG, rogue-like, MMORPG (where, the story don't care at all about your choices, maybe not true with recent one, but MMORPG isn't a recent term), TRPG ect.
An RGP subgenre pretty much mean "that genre with RPG elements".

All those subgenres have one thing in common : Skills, level, progression of a character and such. That's also what put them apart from a fighting game, race game, shooting game, sport game (here again, except recents ones, hear me out : I don't care about moderns thingies, those terms, those genres, those mechanics, are old, unless you're born before them, I don't care, I don't go around renaming things just because I think a dog should be called a pooping-machine, it was called dog before I was born, I accept, even if it's wrong and they're pooping-machines)

So based on this, what is the trade-making of an RPG and is even common with tabletop ? Character sheet, leveling, progression.
Here, now I give my opinion, an RPG have a character progression, HL have a character progression, leveling and talent tree (poor one, but still) so it's also an RPG, it's oriented adventure so ARPG.

Does it answer OP ? No. OP just made the mistake to put three poor letters together and we all focused on that.

So, OP, if you hear me (I doubt) :
Yeah HL is an (A)RPG but your title should be changed.
Does HL give you the ability to roleplay ? No, not really, it would have been better on that part if it was a sandbox game, or a school life simulation, but it's not made for that, not made for roleplaying, it's an adventure game and it's mean to be played like a tomb raider, uncharted, GoW, Witcher or whatever.
Were we (you, me and maybe others) waiting for a more immersive, free experience that would make us feel part of a school, a house, a universe where we woul've have been able to play whatever we wanted ? Yes, but that's on us, the game never said that in any way.

Will they make that for a sequel ? I don't know, I doubt it actually. In lot of way this game feel like Shadow of mordor, they just stay in known lands.

Chapter 2 : Extensions
No, I'm joking, there is no chapter 2 (... For now...) I'll try to stop reading here. Have a good evening, day, month, life, hoping you'll be able to share opinions with respect and intelligence (unlike me that bore you to death with walls of texts).

By minimum, I mean that it can't be considered RPG unless it has this: player influencing the main story.

Putting wheels on my grandma doesn't make her a wheelchair, even if all wheelchairs have wheels.

Every A can be B without every B being A.

I didn't understand the points you were trying to make with everything else. HL is not a RPG. It's an action/adventure/shooter. Hard to say as I haven't played it. But you are always Gordon Freeman. Unless, of course, Gordon Freeman is always the player, which then it may be a RPG? Hard to say. From what I understand, the HL story is pretty linear.

I could strip skills, level and progression and still be making a RPG. I could copy/paste Elden Rings, remove combat, and it wouldn't be souls-like anymore. Combat is what defines souls-like, the minimum for a game to be considered souls-like is to have unforgiving combat encounters.

Edit: realized that HL = Hogwart's Legacy, not Half-Life. Yes, I agree that it's a RPG but barely. I think, if there was more meaningful player choices, it could've been decent.

[Revanite]

Originally posted by cults:

I could strip skills, level and progression and still be making a RPG. I could copy/paste Elden Rings, remove combat, and it wouldn't be souls-like anymore. Combat is what defines souls-like, the minimum for a game to be considered souls-like is to have unforgiving combat encounters.

Obviously you haven't seen all those articles calling everything souls-like.
The only thing a game needs is a dodge, a parry and a bonfire mechanic. Duh! /s

[gingerbreadman]

Originally posted by Kung-flu Fighting™:

Originally posted by Gingerbreadman:

You are confusing playing a role with player agency

Playing super Mario by your definition is a RPG.

No, it isn’t… seriously, pay attention. In what way would mario be an rpg according to my definition? Reread my posts

[Revanite]

Just... gonna leave this here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeH59yPQc7c&ab_channel=PrizzaaGamingChannel