Fallout: New Vegas dev: some RPG advances "undermine" thrill of exploration

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 12 December, 2011

Avellone on journals, quest compasses and auto-maps.

Obsidian designer Chris Avellone believes some of the advancements made in role-playing games over recent years "undermine" the genre.

Avellone, who played a key role in the development of a number of RPG classics while at Interplay, including Fallout 2 and Icewind Dale, told Eurogamer sister site IndustryGamers that while mechanics designed to aid players can be useful, they do have a negative impact.

"I'll say the 'advances' have been more for player convenience, sometimes good, sometimes bad, in my opinion," he said.

"Journals, quest compasses that point directly to the goal and show you the route, auto-maps, etc. are helpful, at the same time, I think it undermines the thrill of victory and discovery and a lot of what makes an RPG an RPG (exploration, notably)."

More successful advances in RPGs are, according to Avellone, making player decisions have consequences and better voice-acting.

"In terms of non-interface elements, I feel the idea of morally grey choices and more focus on actions and consequences has been great for RPGs across the board," he said.

"Lastly, fully voice-acted characters has been something to adapt to since Knights of the Old Republic 1, and the amount of localization, recording and audio work required is substantial, but I feel it's a net positive for the player."

RPG elements are now a part of many video game genres. And RPGs are also evolving - see the Mass Effect franchise.

This blurring of the line between genres is something Avellone is delighted with.

"I enjoy the fact that role-playing game mechanics are bleeding into other genres, and the 'genres' aren't as clear-cut any more," he said.

"Developers are seeing the worth in customization, levelling, dialogue, choice and reactivity and other elements that would normally be considered RPG mechanics and introducing them into multiple titles."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (46) Latest comment 2 months ago

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  • AcidSnake #1 2 months ago

    The thrill of seeking out new bugs and glitches in F:NV's case...

    The joy of my character raising his arms every few minutes to peer under his own armpits to shoot at monsters clipping through walls...

    I loved the game, but please more/better QA before giving pointers...

  • Kanselier #2 2 months ago

    I hate to mention - yet again - the bugs in this game but oh man... the bugs. They've stopped me from playing and finishing this game after having invested a lot of hours in it.

    I hope another developer ventures into the 'Fallout'-genre and creates a game that works. Sorry Obisdian/Bethesda, you have had your turn. Multiple times in case of the latter.

  • Inmediasress #3 2 months ago

    I don't even consider the ME franchise an RPG, so if that's the future count me out.

    The blurring of lines is great for the fps and racing games and whatnot but it's quite bad for old school rpgs since it makes them non-existent.

    Reducing the scope and choices for voice acting is something I don't know why is considered great.(especially when it's second rate acting).

    Well I guess it's more of a success in point of view of the 12 year old attentionspan lacking kids.
    Edited by 1 at 12/12/11 @ 14:26

  • Kami #4 2 months ago

    The problem is without such advances, it all too often end up "Lala Logic". That is, you expect a player to click every inch of the map, every feature, every tree for something, talk to every single NPC. To be fair, in this day and age that sort of thing just isn't acceptable when you can have thousands of trees, features and NPCs running around a virtual landscape (in theory).

    The thrill of discovery and victory needs to be tempered with good design and good execution, which sadly is where New Vegas all too often fell down, because at times I was like "Thank **** for that, right, next."

    And I like dialogue choices, I just wish they weren't so daft. So you decided to swim in a mutagenic pool of green goo and now are unhappy you're a mutant eh? Why don't I have the dialogue choice, "What did you think was going to happen?"

    I think they need to start considering what PLAYERS think, not what they think we should be thinking.

  • Eraysor #5 2 months ago

    I think Fallout and Skyrim have it spot on in my opinion...I like being able to find the objective when I really want to, but there's nothing stopping me wandering off to every marker on the map I want. Games like Fable overdo the handholding far too much.

  • Softie2k #6 2 months ago

    Not everyone has all the time in the world to play games and just like the sense of completion and experience a full storyline.

    Jus' sayin'

  • Xardan #7 2 months ago

    I felt Skyrim offered a fantastic world to explore, but for me it failed as an RPG. I did not feel like my character progressed in a noticeable way, i didn't feel satisfaction or fulfilled by completing the quests or discovering another piece of generic loot. It felt too much like the game was trying to please me, it was all too easy and as a result nothing in the game had value.

  • Batfink #8 2 months ago

    Going all-voiced is massively restricting. It means that NPCs have much less to say, and crucially don't change what they say depending on player actions. Plain text can be altered programatically. For example, "Oh it's you, so called %rank of the %guild. Well that %guild killed my %relation %name just recently, so I don't need *your* help. Now get out of my %building." or "Sorry, but after the raid on %location, my stocks of %product are running low. My prices reflect that."

    The characters in Skyrim have a handful of things to say, and that's all they ever say. For example, I stopped the town of Dawnstar's nightmares and felt very pleased with myself. Went to see the Jarl and she treated me just the same as she always had, with no new dialogue or reactions.

    I'd rather have the older Morrowind style of voicing. Have some "flavour" voice recordings so that towns aren't full of mutes, but keep the meat of the conversations in text form. Not goingn to happen though is it :(

  • Ranger101 #9 2 months ago

    @Batfink I would extend your idea to make it so that all NPC's 'talk' their dialogue, but the language they speak should be various flavours of random gibberish, leaving you with great, varied, dynamic, and immersive text.

  • kangarootoo #10 2 months ago

    I'm quite keen on voice acting now. I was playing games back when you couldn't play a recorded sample of audio on a home computer even if you had wanted to, so I'm well used to text based games. But I like voice acting now and I couldn't give it up. And you could never sell a mainstream game these days if the player had to read dialogue - it would bomb.


    On the subject of blurring genres, RPGs have always been that way, perhaps more than any other genre. People have been having the "is it an RPG" argument as long as RPGs have existed. I really don't care either way anymore (though I certainly used to). When people dismiss something on the basis its "not an RPG" (such as an earlier poster did with Mass Effect), I think it is kind of a shame. If its fun, play it and enjoy it. Equally, if it isn't fun, qualifying as an RPG won't save it.

  • AcidSnake #11 2 months ago

    Any reason for the negs? Or just for the fun of it?

  • Bernkastel #12 2 months ago

    RPG elements are now a part of many video game genres. And RPGs are also evolving - see the Mass Effect franchise.
    Are you serious? I can't even see the RPG in there anymore.

  • connos #13 2 months ago

    How I use the compass and the markers. Go the other way!!!

  • TruSmiles #14 2 months ago

    @Ranger101 Kinda like in the Golden Sun series and the Shining games before it? :D

  • MattRobson #15 2 months ago

    'RPG Elements' as they are called can be utilised in many ways, not always for the better mind it’s all about the implantation and the availability to the player and whether they were a viable design choice for the game and if they bring something extra that give the title that bit extra worth playing for. Such as adding a levelling system to FPS games, they give that something to strive for with the unlock tree in there as well sometimes it just gives you that extra little something to keep you coming back.

    sorry to veer away but mass effect, not an RPG... that’s Role Playing Game right... so you assume the ROLE of Commander Shepard and you PLAY the GAME with him in revealing his story, which you also help narrate with you're choices albeit a rigid Saint, Neutral or Devil 'morality' system.
    Levelling - Check
    Classes with varied abilities - check
    Ability Tree - Check
    Loot - Check
    weapons & weapon Mods - check

    Sure it's got more action elements and cover based mechanic but it fits the universe and the character set its not as if it was just a random design choice which has no place in the game.

    why can you not have an action based, story driven game complete with RPG elements and it not be an RPG? An RPG doesn’t have to involve wandering about a huge map with little trinkets to find with elves, trolls and the like. I’m all for open games like Bathesda have been making this gen loved all of them but come on be a bit more open minded.

  • stryker1121 #16 2 months ago

    In a game like Skyrim you can also turn off all the quest markers and explore at will. You can't turn off the map markers true but that's no big deal. In conclusion, it's silly to bitch over things you have some control over.

  • gillri #17 2 months ago

    I beliebe there is a blance to be had, Fallout 3 for example was better than Oblivion which literally marked everything for you. F3 had the mian side quests which were marked and then had miscellaneous quests whihc required you to use your noggin a bit

    these days we have less and less time, more and more games, more forms of entertinament including internet tv players and 100's of channels, instant gratification syndrome. I dont want to waste hundreds of hours on these RPG's aimlessly checking every square inch of map for bit and bit of pieces of loot when I could have play 3 or 4 games in that time spent romaing aimlessly around a RPG map

  • super_monty #18 2 months ago

    I had to stop playing this games because it was broken.

    Now I have bought Skyrim, i can't kill some of the dragons - one flys backwards into the mountains and becomes out of reach to kill with anything.

  • arcam #19 2 months ago

    I have switched off the compass and quest markers in Skyrim - it is a better game for it, although it's obvious that the game wasn't designed that way. If you're going to tell me to meet your sister, the least you could do is tell me where she is, but Elder Scrolls no longer does this - just puts marker somewhere.

    Personally I don't care about full-voiced acting. First thing I do is switch subtitles on, and I skip to the next piece of dialogue after I've read each bit. So really I just read anyway, except there is the background noise of someone speaking the first few words of the sentence.

  • Inmediasress #20 2 months ago

    @MattRobson

    You know following your logic everything is an RPG.

    ME in praticular lacks any morality.
    You are either good or evil and even then, in most cases the dialogue no matter what you choose comes over as some badass gungho speech.

    Varied clases? Can't even tell them apart most of the time you just go around blasting people with rifles or shotguns.
    More like an interactive movie with fps elements than an RPG.
    In its own category I guess it is good but that does not qualify to me as an RPG.
    Not to mention so called RPGs nowadays lack even the illusion of choiche.

    The biggest issue is that I have with today RPGs its the lack of details.
    Sure Skyrim is wast but lacks detail to it like the boring NPCs and etc.
    ME has little content and even that isn't fleshed out accordingly.

    You know at least in FA:NV I liked the way Obsidian handeld the sotry and conversations, in most cases giving you an illusion of choiche.

    Between this blurring of lines and cinematic immersion or whatever the small details and nuances suffer, that made old rpgs so memorable.
    Those are the small things that people only notice when its not there.
    Thats why you have old rpg fans getting angry that the new games are boring and unimaginative.

    As for the no time to play big RPGs well then don't.
    RPGs are timesinks if you don't have time than watch a movie.
    Edited by 1 at 12/12/11 @ 15:56

  • blackrapt0r #21 2 months ago

    I dislike fast travel, even tho I use it quite a bit, i'd rather have a system like taxi's in gta 4 or horse carriage in red dead. Even speeding up the horses in skyrim would be great.

    Just a shame, whenever I make.a long journey on skyrim, my game freezes alot of the time when i'm so close to thr destation :-(

  • username84 #22 2 months ago

    I do see what this guy is getting at. I try to limit my fast traveling as much as possible but as it's so accessible it's hard not to use it from time to time.
    And I loved the maps in Farcry 2. Actually having to look down at them and away from the game added a sense of realism. Also why no Hardcore mode in Skyrim?? That was the best thing about New Vegas. Really kept you on your toes throughout the whole game. I can understand it not being compulsory but I would have thought the option would be there.

  • arcam #23 2 months ago

    @blackrapt0r There are carriages that will take you only to cities, for a small fee. This is a nice compromise if you're trying to avoid fast travel.

  • Paul_cz #24 2 months ago

    Spot on.
    I have compass turned off in Skyrim, as well as crosshair, so the game is completely HUDless, and it is glorious.

  • spekkeh #25 2 months ago

    I wouldn't outright say that exploration is an RPG staple; that's only because they stick to making the same Lord of the Rings game over and over. I think it's more of an adventure staple (incidentally you could wonder how many of what we consider typical crpgs are really role playing games when they focus so heavily on combat modifiers and not about taking on and acting out different roles).

    Anyway, I do agree with him to an extent that the map markers take away the exploration. I found this especially detrimental in Fable. The breadcrumbs, while a good idea in theory, took out any deliberate mental effort afforded to the environment. This changes the environment into a meaningless backdrop, instead of the thing which keeps the narrative together.

    Taking away the map markers is not enough though, because serendipitous discoveries as occur in Skyrim, while fun in itself, are also not exploration. Exploration is contingent on volitional mental effort beforehand, so they still need to then design the game so that it implicitly points you in the right direction. This is of course very difficult, for an open world game especially. It's also why I hate the minimaps in Rockstar games; it facilitates lazily recreating an existing world and calling it a rap, instead of the main focus of the gameplay interaction model.

  • blackrapt0r #26 2 months ago

    @Inmediasress

    Would really like to know what you consider an rpg...

    ME was like an interactive movie (film grain option springs to mind). Tho I consider it an rpg but not in the old sense.

  • chrisola #27 2 months ago

    I think the things he mentioned should be optional - Fallout 3 and Skyrim are very good for exploring, but they also have the compass and journal if you need it.

    The more tools like this a player has access to, the better. It means everyone can play their own way - the design and story of the game should be strong enough so i can spend 90 hours wandering aimlessly exploring while another player can get straight through the main quest and enjoy the story in 20 hours without having to worry about getting lost.

    I think Skyrim has got it spot on.

    If in doubt, developers just need to include the option to turn something off.

    And i think voice acting is good but the text is good also - a nice mix of the two is my ideal - afterall i tend to read the subtitles and skip listening to most of it anyway, unless it's a particularly interesting \ dramatic conversation.

  • blackrapt0r #28 2 months ago

    @arcam

    Yeah I noticed, tho it is a reasonible compromise I still think the rockstar style is better, say ur going along and bandits/a dragon attacks or a wheel falls off would be sweet

  • Seoh #29 2 months ago

    Oh how i would love another icewind dale game but with modern interface, gfx and voice over. everything else should be like the originals.

  • Rogueywon #30 2 months ago

    Dark Souls, which is admittedly only on the periphery of the RPG genre, has no journal, quest log, auto-map or hud pointer. It works extremely well - there is indeed a sense of genuine exploration that you don't get with a lot of other modern RPGs.

    That said, Dark Souls has a fairly compact and content-dense game-world. I do wonder whether a game with a larger but more sparsely populated world (such as New Vegas or Skyrim) would be able to pull it off quite so well. The original Baldur's Gate had a lot of very open wilderness exploration - which was massively pared down for the (undoubtedly superior) sequel.

  • Ternon #31 2 months ago

    And RPGs are also evolving - see the Mass Effect franchise.
    Yes, they are evolving into a non-RPG.

  • anomagnus #32 2 months ago

    @Inmediasress

    All the classes felt the same? Please. Even in something as combat orientated as the Solider and Vanguard, there were massive differences in how they played. The different between the base line solider and the engineer was massive. To say theres no difference reeks of 'i dont like this game, so i'll just make something up that sounds right to me'

    You were asked what you version of a 'good' rpg was. I'd love to know what you are going to recommend. Baased on your criticsms, i doubt theres a decent RPG left

  • Wyrm #33 2 months ago

    In summary, we can all learn a lot from the Dark Souls approach.

  • Xardan #34 2 months ago

    @Ternon

    I think you mean Action-RPG.

  • Timobkg #35 2 months ago

    Map markers, compasses, and auto-maps do not stand in the way of exploration. They merely prevent you from getting lost, or wasting your time. Exploration is seeing something cool off the path and going to investigate it. Wandering around aimlessly trying to figure out where you need to go, or where in the SW corner of the map the quest giver is sending you, is not exploration, it's merely wasting your time. When I only have 1-2 hours a night to play games, I become very conscious of games and game designs that reward my limited play time versus those that waste it.

    Example 1: In Fallout 3, I have my nice map marker so I knew exactly where to go for a quest, but what's this building off to the side? It looks guarded. Why would it be guarded? I'm going to go check it out, and then get back to following the quest marker.

    Example 2: In Borderlands, I select a quest and get an immediate compass point and map marker so I know exactly where to go. If I need to find X pieces of Y, I know exactly where to go for each piece, so I don't have to waste my time scouring the map for them. Instead, I can spend my time checking out this scary looking tower tucked away against the cliff.

    Example 3: In Final Fantasy VII, I'm told that the place I need to go to is on an island to the SW. It's not here. I've searched every bloody island, where is this stupid place? Gah, I've wasted 45 minutes searching for this stupid thing! Ugh, I don't know what people see in this game. That's it, I need to go look up where this place is online, or I'm going to spend the whole night searching.

  • DryHeat #36 2 months ago

    @Batfink
    The only way around this is to have a more advanced text to speech system. I am surprised the sound card manufactures don't get together and define a chip and libraries just like directx that can do text to speech.

  • orren #37 2 months ago

    This article reminded me of how wonderful it was to actually get LOST while playing Dungeon Master. I'm all teary-eyed now :)

  • Timobkg #38 2 months ago

    @Inmediasress
    By "old rgps" that are "so memorable" I assume you're talking about the classics, like Dragon Quest from 86, and Final Fantasy from 87. Ah, yes, those were truly pinnacles of morality, choice, and interesting NPCs.

    Or are you excluding Easter RPGs from your rose-tinted look at the past? Well, then, you must surely be talking about 1980's Rogue, which brought us such game shaping choices as "Should I quaff this bottle, or shouldn't I?"

    Let's face it, for every Planescape: Torment or Fallout 2, there were dozens of RPGs that lacked morality, choices, or interesting NPCs. Early RPGs didn't even have characters, as both JRPGs like Final Fantasy and CRPGs like the AD&D series had you pick or generate generic PCs.

    Go back and play those RPGs. Personally, I feel that RPGs as a whole are in a much better place now than they were 10 years ago. I view the fact that we now have JRPGs, CRPGs, Action RPGs, FPS RPGs, SRPGs, MMORPGs, and whatever Valkyria Chronicles is (Real-time Turn-based SRPG?) as a very good thing. It means that RPGs are thriving, and that players can get their RPG fix no matter what their persuasion is. Modern Warfare fan? You should try Borderlands, which may then send them towards Fallout 3 or Mass Effect, and then we have another RPG fan.

    And while Mass Effect has limited dialog, and all of it comes off as "badass gungho speech", it offers the player so many choices, that even two people who made all the same "big" choices in ME1 may find their worlds very different in ME2. And while many RPGs strive to have you shape the world around you based on your choices, most do it via a Fallout 3 / Dragon Age "Big Choice of A or B". ME has those, certainly, but it also has all these small little choices that you don't even think twice about, and you may not even notice the effects they have until you talk to your friend or do a second playthrough. Many RPGs could learn something from the smooth and transparent way in which ME shapes your world. The Witcher is the only other RPG that made me feel that even the smallest choice may have repercussions.

  • stryker1121 #39 2 months ago

    @username84 Heh, i liked the FC2 maps, too. Those little touches of realism make that game for me. Makes me think of Morrowind, while it had a map, had NPCs give you detailed directions on where you needed to go. That was a cool bit of immersion.

  • KanePaws #40 2 months ago

    I completely agree that "some RPG advances 'undermine' thrill of exploration." Sadly, in an age where impatience is taken as a given, it's not like you can just ignore goal-markers or turn them off and be done with it, either. Even if the option exists, the games are frequently balanced with those goal-markers in mind already (i.e., with those markers as a crutch), and consequently fail to provide any adequate hints beyond them.

  • PearOfAnguish #41 2 months ago

    Pandering to the mass market has ruined RPGs. Despite this talk of choices and consequences most games allow you to experience a vast majority of the content in one playthrough, they don't allow your decisions to affect what you can see and do to any great degree. Morrowind as an example didn't allow you to join one guild if you were already a member of another, but then Oblivion comes round and you can become the Gray Fox, head mage and lord king dick of the fighter's guild. The choices you make become meaningless.


    Top tip: don't use fast travel in Skyrim. The game is vastly more entertaining when you have to walk everywhere. A trip to a quest location takes hours as you get side tracked by caves and forts, you have to consider which loot to keep rather than just fast travelling to a vendor and you'll run into loads of random events. It transforms the game.

  • spekkeh #42 2 months ago

    @PearOfAnguish
    Pandering to the mass market has ruined RPGs. Despite this talk of choices and consequences most games allow you to experience a vast majority of the content in one playthrough, they don't allow your decisions to affect what you can see and do to any great degree.
    Could be just me, but I fail to see how this is pandering to the mass market. Morrowind already was a very mass market game.

  • uninspiredcup #43 2 months ago

    What he is basically saying is, games have been dumbed down for consoles.

  • PearOfAnguish #44 2 months ago

    Don't think formats are the issue, Morrowind was on Xbox, there's a ton of RPGs on new and old consoles and this Dark Souls thing everyone is loving right now sounds like a bit of a hardcore nerd fest. Just be nice if they'd take a risk more often and have us live with the consequences of our actions instead of worrying that we might miss out on something, and stop holding hands, or at least offer a tougher game mode for those that want it. You can disable map markers in Skyrim but there are no specific directions given for quests so it kinda leaves you stuffed unless you want to spend the entire game wandering around blindly stumbling upon key locations.

  • Zebula77 #45 2 months ago

    I hear what he's saying, but with my rather horrible sense of direction, I'd get utterly lost in a game like Skyrim without the compass and the arrows (which are sometimes confusing as well).

    I love exploration, but I'm very thankful for the icons that show up on my compass. :)

  • onlynapkin #46 2 months ago

    @Ranger101 Aka KOTOR, where every race spoke a different form of gibberish, which was essentially a small set of repeated sound blips, but the dialogue was vastly different.