Roguelikes aren't designed with storytelling at their core. They're designed to place the player in tactical situations over and over (See: ROGUE). Anything else is extra.
By stating this however, you'd doom the genre to a lifetime of stagnation. Every other genre has seen meaningful, across-the-board improvements in most aspects since their conception. First person shooters have gotten physics, story lines that surpass the typical Roguelike, and gameplay improvements in the way simple actions are carried out.
(j)RPGs saw ridiculous improvement in every single aspect; gameplay got more interesting with either timed attacks or more complicated battle systems, much improved writing, music of very high quality, and so on.
But in general the Roguelike has basically seen "kill the Foozle" again and again, with different classes (or no classes), surprising graphical upgrades despite the consensus on less graphics being superior, and the occasional remarkable feature native to only its developer's project(s).
Surely as the typical RPG can ascend past a 4-8 person party of nameless heroes killing The Dark Wizard Werdna in a generic dungeon with traps, the Roguelike can transcend its apparent, forced flaws of having no storyline, little to no sound and usually no music at all?
While i do agree roguelikes these days need more depth then o lawd, the demon x is in the dungeon y, you must keel everything in your path and get out alive!, i think an actual plot would only limit our in game freedom even more. Of course, if done correctly, giving the player a good deal of liberty while maintaining a plot and the average rate of roguelike randomness, it could be awesome (morrowind/daggerfall? anyone).
i'm still very skeptical though.
Precisely. Morrowind (and I suppose Daggerfall, I could never get it to run) featured a plot that provided a backdrop for the world, setting, and problems. You could entirely ignore it or you could chase it from day one, or even some combination of the two. This sort of setting is ideal for the Roguelike, so why has it only very rarely been done?
Off hand I can think of Gearhead and Elona. They both feature important, world plots that don't get in the way of your own ambitions at all. They provide an optional but entertaining objective to flavor your combat.
To me, more important than the plot itself, is the setting and flavor. I can say with one hundred percent certainty right now that I could not play another Tolkien rip-off Roguelike without vomiting all the shoes of one or more of the fine folks that inhabit this forum. I simply can not do it!
Not to say I mind medieval or fantasy. Just Tolkien specifically, now. And I love Tolkien's work.
...and now for something completely non-thread derailing!
Inaluct:
Well, we should form a Bay 12 guild as soon as the game is out. One based on random acts of kindness.
Or maybe kindness AND violence in a completely schizophrenic fashion! Starving? Here, have this fish! AND MY AXE!
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Topic: MnemonicRL (Read 1959 times)