Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Lucian Wischik's avatar

You've often been talking about retirement. I just had to buy my first pair of bifocals yesterday, and retirement from the software industry is on my mind too. In every RPG game there's a steady increase of stats - your character buffs up, gets physically stronger and more powerful and has more money. I wonder what it would be like on the other side? ...

Maybe your character's DEX, STR, CON would decrease, and you compensate for them with your increasing WIS+CHA+coins. Like say a wealthy industrialist whose power grows with wealth as they age.

Or maybe also WIS, INT decrease as well like someone whose brain no longer works as sharply as it once did and you forget things more. Maybe your coins don't increase as you eat through your retirement savings.

It might make a really unpleasant and irritating game! And we all play RPGs because we're addicted to stat increases! On the other hand, as I play through The Witcher 3, I really don't like having progressed so many levels -- now at level 50 near the end of the game, kind of preferred challenges and balance of the earlier levels of the game.

Expand full comment
Gordon Cameron's avatar

I get that time marches on, but I still feel like Ultima IV is far from a 'crude and simple' game. And Ultima V in my opinion is still a better ride (and smarter design) than many a modern CRPG. Maybe my rose colored glasses are bolted on too tight, but I don't think it's just that. Nobody (except the CRPG addict) WILL play those games, I imagine, but I don't think nobody SHOULD. (I also think they still have useful design lessons.)

Expand full comment
12 more comments...

No posts