Anybody here know about games?

Factual Questions
1

Note: This is concerning amusement-type games, as commonly played and not Von-Neuman games or other abstract exotica. I originally posted this on a computer game developer’s forum, but I’m asking about any and all games, not just the transistorized sort.-

RPG, RTS, FPS.

  • I looked each of these up in an online game developers’ dictionary listing, and did not find anything mutually exclusive. What’s the difference? I am trying to find any classifyable difference between ANY games, and all I can think up is two:
  1. One difference of a game (any game) is if you can see your opponent’s pieces/resources, such as checkers or chess, as opposed to those games where you can’t, such as poker and bridge.
  2. Another difference is where there is an element of random chance, such as in most card games or games that involve dice, as opposed to those games where there isn’t, such as ----- checkers and chess.(card games aren’t really completely random, but anyway)
2

I’m very confused by your question. You first mention RPG, RTS, and FPS, but those have nothing to do with games of chance, such as chess or card games. Since I’m not really sure what you want, I’ll just give you defs for the 3 you initially put down, and hope it’ll help.

RPG= Role Playing Game. Involves development of a character’s traits in order to help beat the game. Development of these traits usually yields a unique character with unique abilities for you to play with. You can play the game again, with a completely different strategy, and end up playing it totally differently.

RTS = Real Time Strategy. These are usually games that require either movement of pieces or building things. Examples of RTS games would be RollerCoaster Tycoon, SimCity, Age of Empires, etc. Most of the time, these are turn-based, but not always. Most RTS games in the computer world involve managing resources in order to win. Also, most of the time, the game area is divided into a grid.

FPS = First Person Shooter. This is the basic shoot-em-up genre, which the view is from the, um, first person…you run around from the point of view of the main character and basically kill anything that moves. There are some combinations to this sort of thing, and variations on the theme. Thief, for example, is more of a first person sneaker, where you don’t try to kill very much. System Shock 2 and Deus Ex would be a combo of FPS and RPG.

If this is no help to you, sorry…as far as what you were talking about with the rules, I think that you COULD classify games by those standards, but I don’t think that it would be the best way to divide them. While you can see the chess pieces, but not cards, they’re both based a lot on strategy and planning ahead. Also, most games, if not all that are actually fun, have some element of chance in them. If not, it’s a really boring game.

Jman

3

Chess is a game of chance?

Something tells me you’ve never played chess before…

4

I also am not quite sure what you asking. As I understand it, your two crieterion are 1.Hidden oponent resources, and 2. random element. But the part I’m a little confused about what you mean by reduce. You can obviously take anygame and put in in its place on this grid. Monopoly is yes-hidden resources,yes-chance. Clue is also yes to both. Chess is no to both. But there are any number of abitrary factors you could use to further categorize them. Is single player possible? Is it time limited? Does it require a judge of some sort? Your categories are based on very fundamental parts of the game, and important in deffining the game, I just don’t quite understand reduce.

5

They are not mutually exclusive but can be isolated in a game.

Ok, a FPS game is where you don’t see your body in the game but are instead looking through the monitor as though it were your eyes. The shooting does not actually have to come from moders or futuristic weapons but can be magic or bows or whatever. In this genre the view is what is important.

An RPG as has been explained is a role playing game, but does not mean you have to be a dungeon dweller. You can roleplay a cop or space person. Typically it requires non-combat interaction to call it roleplay. Thus Hexen which was DnD like would not be an RPG but would be an FPS because it was first person, but had no real roleplay elements. But in certain modes Everquest is an RPG that you can play in FPS mode.

You can have RTS in any of them but it will have to be a mode because you cannot to my knowledge have an RTS environment going while you have yout FPS environment byt you can roleplay during both. Because RTS view is going to be an overhead map it will exclude the use of FPS mode while you are strategizing.

Now for a game that combines all three you don’t have to look far.

Soon to be released is a new Mechwarrior which combines all three.

You join an army and interact with other soldiers in a non-combat fashion. You work for promotions and other social benefits-Thus the everpresent RPG element.

Your army fights for planets, when you land on an occupied planet it is divided into grids and the game is strategy of movement until–

You occupy the same grid as an enemy “mech”, then the view switches to FPS mode and you battle it out from your cockpit while your other comrades continue to strategize or go into the same mode depending on proximity to the enemy.

Anyone familliar with the original RPG paper game of Mechwarrior will recognize this as a true melding of the RPG/FPS and RTS versions of the game.

6
      • I don’t see any difference myself: there’s no reason that you couldn’t rewrite the same game as a FPS, an RPG and a RTS, because the only difference seems to be the view of the situations that the game places you in -you just get different views.
  • I guess another difference would be if the game is turn-based or not, because most non-electric games (almost all I can think of right off) are turn based, where most electronic games are not - unless it’s an electric version of a non-electric game. You can have a turn-based electric game, so that does not suffice as any real definition between electronic and non-electronic.
  • I’m curious about the differences: rules that hold true at least most of the time. There’s no fundamental difference between “playing” a knight or “piloting” a spaceship or running around shooting stuff in Doom. In all three cases, you are trying to avoid damage while ammassing items of value (be they points, ammo, gold, fuel or whatever). Many computer game enthusiasts emphasize the “story” of a game, but the story has nothing to do with how challenging the game is- it’s just the designer’s justification for how the game looks. - MC
7

Yes, there is.

By making a game an RTS, you reduce the possibilty of RP, by concentrating on the strategy, rather than the development of one character, or a small group thereof.

By making it an RPG, the focus gets shifted away from the strategy, and towards the story of a small group of characters.

By making it an FPS, controling units other than the exact character you’re playing as becomes difficult, perhaps unreasonably so.

As was said, it is possible to incorporate all three elements into the same game, but redoing the game as entirely one genre or another would neccessarily change the story.

8

I’ve just visited the chess match Kasparov - Kramnik (playing for a prize fund of $2,000,000), and I agree with the previous post: there is no ‘chance’ in chess.
Chess is entirely based on looking ahead. You can get tired, or be unable to fathom the complexities, but that’s not chance.
I think the only role of chance in games is to let a weaker player beat a stronger one.

I define real time games as the opposite of turn-based. Also, in real time, strategy may matter less than reflexes.

9

Actually, there is a small element of chance in chess. In any given position, there are some moves that are better than others. It’s quite possible that a person making random moves would happen to make a series of good moves, and thus, by pure luck, win. Even at the professional level, this can still have an effect. Nobody knows what the best move is in any given situation, or the game would be pointless. A good player can give a pretty good ranking of the moves, but suppose Kasparov sees two really killer moves. One will most likely be slightly better than the other, and he might or might not choose that one, based on his finite ability to evaluate them.

10

I am also confused but let me just say that Backgammon is the best game around.
It’s the perfect blend of skill and luck, strategy plays a big part, The tide of the game can turn at any moment and best of all, no matter how bad you fuck up, the games are short so in about about 10 minutes you can redeem yourself next game. And don’t even get me started about playing for $ and the doubling cube!

11

How do you define game? Do you include sports? Skill? coordination? If you’re discussing computer games, they can be radically different from each other when we look at the broad spectrum available.

Strictly speaking, you can’t play an RPG by yourself–if you buy a package game, even the best games are still you versus the Computer, so there is very little role-playing involved (pathetic multi-player blunders like Ultima Online are hardly worthy of mention). The equivalent would be speaking to the reflection in your mirror–the interaction is just not good enough. I would suggest checking out a good MUD. Armageddon (www.armageddon.org) has impressed me since 1993. it is a text-based game, but it requires adaptability, intelligence, memory, quick-thinking, planning, etc. You want role-play, it’s there. You want the aspects of a game based on strategy, skill, etc., it’s all there too. It’s real time as well. Have a look, but be prepared for an extremely challenging game.

The complete opposite of this are the Japanese RPGs such as Final Fantasy, for computers and game consoles. There’s absolutely no role-playing in these games, or perhaps the Japanese idea of RP is much more limited than European/American concepts, and involves seeing stupid-looking cartoon characters speak in cheesy word balloons while the game develops along the exact path that the developers planned for you.

An FPS is a first person shooter–which is a TINY portion of the possibilities in the gaming universe. Most FPS are the same fundamental game with some cosmetic changes, and most of them are bad. Unimaginative, clumsy, repetitive, etc. I classify Wolfenstein, Doom, Duke Nuke Em, and all that extremely successful family of products as pure rubbish (if occasionally entertaining, for an intra-office network bash, for example). A much more interesting and challenging first person game that was primarily an RPG was Dungeon Master, from FTL. An old game, but still a masterpiece (it spawned hundreds of imitations). Play it on an Atari ST for maximum effect.

A first-person perspective game is not necessarily poor. The Tomb Raider games, for example, are challenging and entertaining. I would consider them FP–even though we can see Lara Croft from a third perspective (a fact that no doubt has enabled the game to become so successful), she is completely under our control: when we want to look one way, she has to turn her head and allow us to see in that direction, etc.

Unfortunately all the wonderful technology of today does not necessarily mean we have so many good games. If anything, I think average playability has decreased the past 15 years. Every single two-bit developing house think they can crank out games. Finding a good game for the Playstation by chance is almost impossible now, which does make a warped consumer case for piracy.

But the possibilities of games are almost infinite. Sure, we have some exceedingly bad game developers, but we also have good ones. Many of the truly good games–and therefore the concepts on which they are based-- are distinct, and it would be difficult to classify them into one slot.

12
      • I don’t see the difference between a RPG and a RTS: you could be controlling seven spaceships, or seven knights, or seven aliens, or seven sailing ships, it doesn’t matter. The decisions during gameplay tend to be very similar. Another way to explain is if you took an RPG and an RTS, and re-wrote them to change all the on-screen figures to simple geometric objets, how would the two be different? If your seven RTS spaceships became red squares, and your seven RPG knights became red squares, and everything else visible on both of the screens was reduced to abstract simple shapes and colored the same in both games, how would you be able to tell if you were playing one game or the other? The red square that used to be a spaceship would have “traits” (labeled with geometric objects, NOT words) and the red square that used to be a knight would have “traits” (also labeled with geometric objects) and you would be trying to match your squares up against enemies to obtain the best outcome for yourself. On the fundamental level, the health of a knight is the same as the shields of a spaceship. - MC
13

MC, I think you are being needlessly deconstructive. You don’t need to replace everything with red triangles or glittery purple dodecahedrons to understand the differences in game types. Besides, a real RPG is NOT a bunch of knights that could be substituted by space ships or red triangles. In recent years, a lot of games have been marketed as RPGs, but RPGs they are not. WarCraft and StarCraft have nothing at all to do with an RPG, to take your knights and space ships example.

Strictly speaking, you have to be able to role-play to play an RPG. When was the last time you role-played with your computer? Unless you were on a MUD (Multi-User Dimension), chances are you never role-played with your computer. Modern one-person (not MUD) RPG games are simply games that have evolved from the classic RPG systems (mostly D&D and that lot) and that are heavily character-based, requiring any number of character attributes, or stats. This means that in a good (certainly not Japanese) computer RPG you develop your character/s, outfit him, explore an environment, and live adventures through him, with a certain degree of freedom (i.e., you are free to play around in your environment much as the character you are role-playing might if he existed).

An RTS, as has been explained, has a more dominating board strategy element. WarCraft and StarCraft are RTS games. Although the individual values of your game units vary from type of unit to type of unit, the concept is exactly the same as the old board game RISK: it’s on a grid, it’s confrontation, and it relies on strategic use of specific unit movements.

RPGS and RTS are extremely different games, even right down to the mechanisms by which the games work. We are not just talking about modifying the graphics; graphics in your example are purely cosmetic, and knights might as well be space ships. So you could have a sci-fi shoot’em up game, change the graphics to knights, dragons, and damsels and have a fantasy shoot’em up game. But that would hardly change the game mechanics or game type, as it would remain fundamentally the same game. It would not transform an RTS into an RPG.

To truly understand the differences, play around with:

a good MUD —> real RPG with multiple players
any of the D&D games —> one-player imitation of RPG
Duke 3D —> FPS
StarCraft or Age of Empires —> RTS

I guarantee you will notice no obvious similarity among the games. There are many more computer game types than the above. Makes for a fascinating topic too, check them out if you haven’t.

14

Abe has done a good job of point out differences between RTS and RPG, but I’d like to help clarify a couple points.

First, one player RPG’s are probably not considered “imitation” by the majority of gamers. Fallout, Might and Magic, and even Final Fantasy are widely classified as RPG games, pure and simple. I know the pen and paper systems came first and there is no substitute for live opponents and/or teammates, but to say Fallout isn’t a “real” RPG smacks of elitism.

Secondly in most RTS games, the units are basically interchangable. In general, if in Starcraft your tank is destroyed, bring up a second one and it will perform with the exact same effectiveness. (There are a few unique units on occasion, though.) But in RPG’s, if you lose a character, he is irreplacable; a new character will not have the skills or equipment that the old character had.

There is often a blending of “role-playing elements” into strategy games. Panzer General is one I’m more familiar with, although this was a turn based strategy game. In PG, your units acquire experience points and possibly special skills for each engagement they survive. But I doubt anyone familiar with computer gaming would look for Panzer General among the RPG’s. X-Com is another example of a game that combined elements of different genres (RTS, RPG, and turn-based) into a very successful package. On the other hand, RPG’s often contain detailed turn-based or real-time combat systems–the genres play off each other’s ideas to (sometimes) improve the general quality of games.

15

[quote]
…Strictly speaking, you have to be able to role-play to play an RPG… - Abe

[quote]

      • I haven’t played anything that qualifies as an RPG or RTS in a couple years at least, so I’m not too familiar with what’s out there. I could be, but I can ask on a game message board and get the opinions of 100 people who already know. The problem is that most people don’t understand the question of “how does a game play”, if asked they go on about this castle looks cool or that spell is cool, but miss the point completely. Most differences between RTS and RPG games sound cosmetic, and except for the path issue, FPS games don’t sound all that different either. Compare this to checkers and Othello, two games that use very similar pieces and boards (you can even play checkers using an Othello game!) but are two very different games.
        ~
  • The problem with defining the difference as “being able to role-play” shifts it off of any technical definition - those being what I’m interested in. If the definition relies on each individual’s opinion, then in reality there is no difference in the games themselves. The “red squares” analogy is valid; it exposes differences in play that graphics or storylines tend to obscure. One does not play the graphics or the storyline, one plays the game. - MC
16

I think you’re missing the point here. These are not cosmetic definitions, at least not in the common usages of the TLA’s. Jman did this already, but let me give it a try.

RTS: Real-Time Strategy. In order for a game to be classified as RTS, it has to meet both criteria. First, things happen in real-time (instead of turn based)–compare football, which is real-time, to chess which is not. “Chess is real-time.” you say. Not by our definition. Chess is I go, you go, I go; in other words, turn based. Football is everybody moving at once: real-time. If chess was real-time you’d be able to move without waiting for your opponent (an interesting concept, actually).

Secondly, to be called “strategy”, the game must include some strategic elements. This is where definitions get a little blurry. Although multiplayer Quake might entail some strategy, and it’s definitely real-time, it’s not generally considered a strategy game. “Why not?” you ask. Because, from military definitions, it’s considered “tactics” if you are on a grunt’s level, and strategy from general’s level. So a strategy game is almost always third person (bird’s eye view hovering over your troops).

FPS: First-Person Shooter. Again, two criteria. It has to be in the first person (though right behind the character like Tomb Raider might still be considered FPS by some), and of course shooting is the order of the day. There are first person games that aren’t shooters (Myst, Thief) and shooters that aren’t first-person. (Can’t think of any new ones–Galaxian, Space Invaders, Spy Hunter, etc. Most shooting arcade games that use a joystick.)

RPG: Role-Playing Game. These games revolve around very specific characters and building them up, usually by fighting. Not just Hit Points (HP) (many non-RPG use those) but also strength, charisma, sneaking, pickpocketing, weapons use, magic use, intelligence, dexterity, etc, etc, etc…

These are are specific definitions. The aforementioned MUD’s are definitely RPG, but are not RTS and definitely not FPS. Starcraft and Rollercoaster Tycoon are RTS, but not RPG or FPS. Quake are Doom are FPS, but not RPG or RTS. System Shock is a mix between FPS and RPG. Battlezone is a mix between RTS and FPS.

Hope this helps.

17

BTW, there are also many games which are not considered RPG, RTS, or FPS. Most adventure games would fit this description:

Zork I, King’s Quest, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango.
Any classic turn-based wargame would not fit either:

Panzer General, Steel Panthers, Operational Art of War, Axis and Allies.

18

Sorry…I misspoke…didn’t look over my post. sorry. I’ve played lots of chess.

19

all the above are RTS games but turn based games such as Civ and X-Com are not RTS they are in another catagory. Actually X-com was a combo of turn based (actual battle) and RTS for resource managment and shooting down UFO’s

20

Well, I have seen this happen in a beginners game. They didn’t remember what I taught them! :wally
But I’ve played and analysed with professional players, and they can easily cope with the unusual. Random moves will NOT work against a good player.*

This is certainlt possible. But I have two points.
First, if you have two good looking moves, you usually choose the safest. Keeping the advantage means your opponent faces continuing problems, and another killer opportunity will soon come along.
Second I don’t think that making a decision between two continuations that you’ve analysed is ‘chance’. It just represents the limit of your skill.
Having to roll a dice (i.e. an event you have no control over) is how I define chance in games.

*If you’re interested, maybe we could play a game or two of chess, where one of us makes a couple of random consecutive moves (or something along those lines…).