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[alexandertnt]

Oddly enough, I wasn't a huge fan of how Morrowind told its story. It freezes the game in the background and gives you a large chunk of text. For a generally visual medium like video games, I prefer some more visual story telling. JRPG's (as much as I hate their gameplay) often do an excellent job, they can convey a lot of emotion and information about a character by simply moving the sprite around.

At least Oblivion had some facial expressions, as dopey as they were. Actually, Oblivions facial expressions were probably worse than just freezing the game

Also, It wasn't in the least subtle that Nerevarine was some sort of saviour type character, when the regular folk start giving vague hints that the Nerevarine is a thing.

[Neonivek]

I always assumed the Imperial Cult was one of those state created religions that attempt to make the populous worship them... while not really given trusted in general.

[Shadowlord]

Oddly enough, I wasn't a huge fan of how Morrowind told its story. It freezes the game in the background and gives you a large chunk of text. For a generally visual medium like video games, I prefer some more visual story telling. JRPG's (as much as I hate their gameplay) often do an excellent job, they can convey a lot of emotion and information about a character by simply moving the sprite around.

I guess you would hate Planescape Torment... but it's one of the best games ever made.

[Neonivek]

Oddly enough, I wasn't a huge fan of how Morrowind told its story. It freezes the game in the background and gives you a large chunk of text. For a generally visual medium like video games, I prefer some more visual story telling. JRPG's (as much as I hate their gameplay) often do an excellent job, they can convey a lot of emotion and information about a character by simply moving the sprite around.

I guess you would hate Planescape Torment... but it's one of the best games ever made.

Yes because you can NEVER dislike a great game. It is physically impossible, the thought police won't allow it.

---

The thing that good JRPGs do better then Western RPGs almost EVER do is tell a personal story.

JRPGs are about making characters come to life

Western RPGs are about making a setting come to life

It is why Bioware makes the most stale inane characters possible who "tell you their emotions" and are considered "great storytellers"... because Western RPGs have no competition.

Not that it is bad mind you... Only that I am tired of Bioware games and their paltry attempt to characterize people.

[Glloyd]

In Oblivion they took away our levitation and our jump fortifying. As well as our people that vaguely resembled people.

The legendary potato people of Cyrodill

[Neonivek]

Bioware Games

Honestly this is sort of a "once you realize what is happening" sort of deal. Because when I first played their games I was content, in fact my first game of theirs was Neverwinter Nights and the second was Neverwinter Nights 2.

So at first I was content but I noticed that Neverwinter 1 and 2 had the exact same character who looks different but has the exact same voice. Then I played Knights of the Old Republic and there she was again!

Then I played Dragon Age with Morigan and Sten on my team at once and how much of a completely moronic pair they were and how they would constantly berate me for doing the right thing because "Only dummies do the right thing for rewards" (Hmm what is our job again OHH YEAH building an army... I guess we can succeed at that by being total asses)... and then Jade Empire... Jade Empire is what made me realize how bad the series was, as talking to my buddies was stale and worst part was that the sociopathic murderer invites himself on my team... and lets not even get into the really insanely stupid morality system... You know, I understand what they were going for, but you do not "make people stronger" by eradicating them. Yet the game seems to make extremism to be "the way".

I am not going to mince words

They SUCK and writing characters, they are dreadful at writing good dialog, their stories are trite, and they honestly couldn't make a personal conversation between two people to save their lives. They do not understand moral ambiguity, they do not understand how people work, how relationships work, how love works...

I HATE that they often force you to lug the worst characters around with you. I hate when they make you lug useless piles of garbage with you.

And their small islands of "good writing" only compounds this. Jade Empire was a very interesting game with terrible NPCs.

There is no Bioware game in existence that I can honestly say that has "Good Writing", "Good Characters", and "Good Morality".

And before you DARE say ONE word in defense... Play Dragon Age, put Sten and Morrigan in your party... and play a good character.
-Morigan: "WAAAAAAAAAHHHH You did something good! I hate you! Even though it only furthers our goals and we got a reward for it and it was in our way"
-Sten: "WAAAAAAAAAAAH why are you doing something OTHER then immediately doing our objective. Waaaaaaah! Please find my shield! I am a total hypocrite"

Bioware Protip: Evil people... don't care that you do good things. They do not like you less, in fact evil people may very well like good people more than other evil people. There is a league of difference between being a goody two shoes sap that everyone takes advantage of and makes poor decisions because it is the "right thing to do" and simply being helpful.

In fact if I was evil and my annoying good buddy dragged me off to some charity event... and we ended up getting fat loot from it... I'd honestly be surprised and gain a new respect for my friend. "Wow, being good pays"

[Parsely]

They SUCK and writing characters, they are dreadful at writing good dialog, their stories are trite, and they honestly couldn't make a personal conversation between two people to save their lives. They do not understand moral ambiguity, they do not understand how people work, how relationships work, how love works...

^^This so much. For anyone who disagrees I invite you to watch smudboy's plot analysis of Mass Effect 2.

[Virtz]

Neverwinter Nights 2 was actually done by Obsidian. Which is surprising to me since it's somehow worse than most Bioware games, and pretty much all other Obsidian games. Like it's a great comedy game that could be a parody of Bioware games, but I don't think it was intended as such.

[SealyStar]

What bugs me most about Bioware RPGs isn't that they aren't very well-written, but that people fellate them for being so well-written when they quite obviously aren't. At the risk of pissing off a decent amount of people here (and sounding like someone straight outta /v/) I think part of it is that (recently) there's a large amount of pandering they do to "diversity" and "feels" which a lot of people mistake for deep characterization. Like, "This character is transgender/lesbian/a strong Woman of Color^TM so they must be a deep, well-written character!"

And of course there's saving the galaxy with the Power of Primary Colors^TM and "Paragon" and "Renegade" which are totally a subjective measure of lawful versus chaotic and not just a good-evil dichotomy! And the fabulous point-and-select-and-sit-back dialogue system.

[UXLZ]

The Witcher, is all I have to say before I leave for school.

[Niveras]

The thing that good JRPGs do better then Western RPGs almost EVER do is tell a personal story.

That's because (as you kind of pointed out) they go about things in a completely different way and have completely different goals, despite our nomenclature somehow both putting them under the "RPG" genre.

The thing is, "role-playing game" accurately describes both genres. But it's the difference between playing a pre-formatted role (JRPG) like an actor, versus acting out a role you designed yourself (WRPG) as one does in D&D. A JRPG will always play out the same way (incidentally, this is also the more 'traditional' story telling method used by practically all media, including modern non-WRPG games). A WRPG has more variations, but the nature of programming necessitates that it be shallow.

Maybe the [J | W]RPG distinction is enough to keep them separate, but probably one or the other should have a more distinct title to its genre.

[Rolan7]

What do people consider an iconic WRPG, though?  I've never even seen WRPG as an acronym, as opposed to JRPG which is everywhere.  Maybe that's because (to us Westerners) a RPG is western unless otherwise stated.

I *really* need to play Planescape: Torment.  I got spoiled on its big twist once and managed, after years, to forget said twist.
But there's also everything by Bethesda, Bioware, and all the developers that came before them (not sure what other western developer is making narrative-based RPGs currently...)

I may be biased, but the Fallout series (despite being creatively and expertly reinvented in the 3D titles) may be the iconic western RPG...?

[hector13]

And of course there's saving the galaxy with the Power of Primary Colors^TM and "Paragon" and "Renegade" which are totally a subjective measure of lawful versus chaotic and not just a good-evil dichotomy! And the fabulous point-and-select-and-sit-back dialogue system.

This is made to be quite clear in ME2. Basically you gain Paragon points by acting against Cerberus... despite the fact they're the ones actually doing something about the Collector/Reaper threat, and giving you the resources to deal with it.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds, eh?

Fallout is one of my favourite series of ever. Especially New Vegas.

[Graknorke]

Iconic RPGs? The Elder Scrolls games. That's the example I think most people would give.

[Shadowlord]

What do people consider an iconic WRPG, though?  I've never even seen WRPG as an acronym, as opposed to JRPG which is everywhere.

An iconic Witcher Role-Playing Game? Ain't many of those (It's only all of them).

Iconic RPGs? The Elder Scrolls games. That's the example I think most people would give.

Even worse than Bioware...